Praxis, Not Practice: The Ethics of Consent and Privacy in 21st Century Archival Stewardship

Abstract

This article considers ethical issues of consent and privacy during each phase of archival stewardship. The authors examine flaws in traditional archival theory that contribute to oppression and silencing and highlight unique collections and practices at San Diego State University that begin to set the 21st century archive apart. We focus on responsive collection stewardship with two case studies—a collection of correspondence from individuals being held in a detention center and a zine collection. Drawing on a framework of radical empathy and ethics of care set forth by Michelle Caswell and Marika Cifor (2016), we will critically dissect, dismantle, and unsettle traditional approaches to consent and privacy. The first case study scrutinizes privacy and consent issues surrounding the documentation of vulnerable populations with an emphasis on ethics. The second case study examines the need for increased sensitivity and flexibility in collecting zines. The article shares ideas for how to acquire and manage these types of collections in socially and ethically responsible ways, using an archival ethics worksheet that prioritizes consent and privacy throughout the stewardship process. Archival stewardship refers to a range of actions representing the lifespan of an archival collection, including appraisal, acquisition, arrangement, description, access, digitization and deaccessioning of archival materials, as well as the development of policies and best practices for each. In addition, stewardship encompasses the relationships formed with record creators, subjects, users, communities and other archivists during this lifespan. The first four of these relationships were identified by Michelle Caswell and Marika Cifor (2016) as “key archival relationships” in their article, “From Human Rights to Feminist Ethics: Radical Empathy in the Archives,” and the fifth was subsequently and rightly proposed by the Radical Empathy in Archival Practice group zine distributed at the Society of American Archivists’ annual conference in 2017 (Wooten et al., 2017). Stewardship carries implications of responsibility, care, trust and accountability toward each of these five categories. This article seeks to situate issues of consent and privacy, including the right to be forgotten, within the radical empathy framework as it applies to stewardship, by examining two case studies from San Diego State University (SDSU) documenting vulnerable populations and individuals. The authors discuss how the case studies necessitated an ethics of care in decision making that had not factored into previous practices, and explore how archives contribute to the exploitation of vulnerable subjects on the Internet. An examination of consent and privacy issues allows librarians and archivists to work backwards and consider when and why it is appropriate to disrupt the traditional sequence of stewardship actions. And finally, an archival ethics worksheet, developed by the authors, prompts a process based on the radical empathy framework to supplement established best practices, allowing for a more careful and responsible evaluation of every step Praxis, Not Practice 7 ATD, VOL18(ISSUE1/2) of the stewardship of archival collections documenting vulnerable populations. Our goal is to enhance the growing body of literature and professional recommendations that contribute to the unsettling of archives through the revision or abolition of actions informed by the power and privilege of Whiteness. Before going further, a few words on the title of this article are also warranted. “Praxis” as a term distinguished from theory is synonymous with the term “practice”. However, in critical theory, praxis denotes “action,” or perhaps further distinguished, “activism”. These distinctions draw upon the Hegelian and Marxist schools of thought in which praxis denotes transformative action. Praxis in the context of critical archival stewardship would therefore signify a rejection of indiscriminate legacy practices and a shift towards subjective, empathetic actions that consider the archival relationships described by Michelle Caswell, Marika Cifor, and the Radical Empathy in Archival Practice group. Critical archival stewardship demands a program for action. The authors have chosen, however, to be intentional in describing our proposed process as “21st century archival stewardship” in a bid to integrate an ethics of care into the work of all archivists and librarians. Case Study 1: Privacy and Consent in the Detainee Allies Letter