Spotlight: Marisa Hicks-Alcaraz

Abstract

Spotlight:Marisa Hicks-Alcaraz Angela J. Aguayo Click for larger view View full resolution [End Page 5] Marisa Hicks-Alcaraz is a distinguished post-doctoral research associate at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. As a transdisciplinary scholar, she brings together digital race and ethnic studies, media arts practice and curation, liberationist political thought, US Latin American and Caribbean diasporic studies, intersectional feminism, and grassroots archival praxis. Her research aims to decenter Western ways of knowing and challenges extractivist and neoliberal practices by adopting a relational framework for publicly engaged scholarship. Her most recent projects focus on partnerships that support the remixing of personal archives to reclaim our stories and the recovery of independent filmmaking created by US-based Latinas in the Latina Film Recovery Project. Marisa received her PhD in Cultural Studies from Claremont Graduate University and MA in Cinema Studies from New York University. Interview by Angela J. Aguayo, an associate professor in the Department of Media and Cinema Studies at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Angela J. Aguayo: Your current research is an innovative program of scholarship and community archiving focused on digital preservation and challenging the assumptions of its capitalist-colonial worldview. This scholarship involves an engaged practice of collaborating with communities on digital preservation of undocumented histories, foregrounding the stories and archives of underrepresented and misrepresented people. In using this framework, how do we avoid replicating the power dynamics we aim to dismantle? Marisa Hicks-Alcaraz: To do this, we need to keep looking critically at our own interventions. It's important to recognize that in navigating and negotiating dominant knowledge systems, we may inevitably reproduce the very parts of colonialism and capitalism that we have already identified as violent and in need of change. A part of this process is acknowledging the significant power differentials between ourselves and community partners and surrendering our power to work effectively and ethically. To me, this means showing humility and vulnerability. It means being conscious of my actions, owning up to my mistakes, and making plans to prevent future mistakes. And it means committing to nourishing the kinds of skills that involve consistent and repeated actions of respect, trust, and honest communication to form meaningful and flourishing relationships. This may not necessarily be a solution, but it can be a step forward. Aguayo: Your writing has appeared in the International Journal of Information, Diversity, & Inclusion; Feminist Media Histories; Interdisciplinary Digital Engagement in Arts & Humanities; and Reviews in Digital Humanities. The research questions you propose in these projects are essential to media and cinema studies: How does a critical analysis of power provide an understanding of how capitalist-colonialism underpins dominant digital preservation systems? What are some practical ways archivists and researchers can apply a relations-centered framework to digital preservation activities and approaches? Can you tell me a bit about what you are discovering in your work? Hicks-Alcaraz: Questioning the systems we participate in enacts a commitment to solidarity and regard for others in our communities. My own critical analysis of digital preservation principles and practices in community settings exposes underlying assumptions of access and ownership rooted in colonial and neoliberal systems. Take for instance the "post-custodial" model. [End Page 6] Post-custodialism is widely understood as a non-extractive, mutualistic approach that shares control with creators by managing digitized copies of their archival materials without obtaining physical custody (ownership) of them. While post-custodialism intervenes in the archival principle of custody, the management or stewardship of community records by archival institutions risks deepening inequity as creators are often required to grant perpetual control over the use, exhibition, and distribution of the digital copies made of their records without ongoing consent, the right to withdraw, or financial compensation. Mechanisms such as these, regardless of intention, contribute to the disempowerment and devaluation of historically excluded communities. Alternatively, a relations-centered approach to digital preservation challenges homogeneous power dynamics between archivist/researcher and community and responds to the increasing urgency for a deep sense of responsibility and connection to others. The following protocols are taken from a toolkit I'm currently developing with fellow ImaginX en Movimiento (IXeM) member and graphic designer Aldo Puicon.1 Rooted in...