Papers Panel: Transforming Knowledge, Transforming Libraries: Community-Centered Archives in the Classroom
Sponsored by Iowa State University Library
This panel addresses the intersection between ethnic studies theory and community archives practice through primary source instruction. A three-year, IMLS-funded research project, “Transforming Knowledge, Transforming Libraries,” asks “what are the outcomes of undergraduate students applying what they learn in ethnic studies combined with their lived experience in contributing to community archives?” The grant research team seeks to answer this question by introducing community archives concepts to undergraduate students enrolled in ethnic studies courses. In a workshop we explore community archives theory and bring primary source materials into the classroom to demonstrate how students can facilitate “representational belonging” in archives. Panel participants will address workshop design, pedagogical collaboration with ethnic studies faculty (e.g. customization of workshops to incorporate materials that supplement the class syllabi), early findings from the students’ responses to workshop activities, and lessons learned from implementing our workshop in African American, Asian American, and Chicano/Latino studies courses. Panel participants will touch on how, in taking a community-centered approach to archival work, we seek to enrich regional history collections and potentially empower a new generation to transform the archival record.