Knowledge Production Series
UNITED KINGDOM
Community of practice
Editorial Overview by Dr Carol Ann Dixon
“An archive may be largely about ‘the past’ but it is always ‘re-read’ in the light of the present and the future… Thus it is extremely important that archives are committed to inclusiveness, since it is impossible to foretell what future practitioners, critics and historians will want to make of it.”
– Stuart Hall (“Constituting an Archive,” 2001, p. 92)
Co-creating an inclusive community of practice
Following the April 2025 convening on Liberatory Archives and Memory (LAMy), hosted by Whose Knowledge? in Brighton, participants at that gathering and other previous learning circles were invited to contribute to a new series of knowledge pieces showcasing progressive approaches to archiving, curatorship, heritage education, community-based storytelling and other aspects of memory work.
An open call for authors and other documentarians was issued to achieve these ambitions:
- To transform the UK LAMy network from an events-focused collective into a dynamic community of practice through which to exchange information, reflect on past outputs, learn together and discuss work-in-progress.
- To provide an inclusive online forum that supports and facilitates collaborative working, ideas exchanges and further knowledge co-production.
- To widen access to the LAMy community, its events and its online resources – moving beyond ‘word-of-mouth’ invitations towards more transparent and open methods of communication and participation.
Diverse perspectives and thought-provoking narratives
This inaugural series of knowledge pieces showcases a diversity of artistic, educational and socio-political narratives about heritage and memory, presented in a variety of formats – from review articles and photo-essays, through to collaborative anthologies of poetry and prose, dialogical writing and evaluative project reports.
Collectively, the contributions explore thought-provoking issues and themes related to decolonising museums and archives, analysing the language of memory work, artistic expressions of cultural heritage and identity, research ethics and social justice activism.
The series opens with Dr Savita Vij’s engaging reflections on the LAMy Brighton convening – titled, We, as Living Archives.
Two insightful photo-essays showcase examples of transnational, diaspora-related research, linked respectively to the Caribbean and Vietnam: Black Geographies of Kings Hill, Dominica, by Nathaniel Télémaque; and Family Photographs from the Vietnamese Diaspora Set in Motion, by Câro Gervay.
Other contributors present poignant narratives about family history, inter-generational heritage dialogues, kinship and ancestral commemoration – as featured in Dr Marcia Michael’s moving essay, Mother, Memory, History.
Reflecting on the earlier LAMy convening held in Birmingham (June 2024), a selection of articles analyse and reference the theories and archives of the renowned Jamaican-British cultural studies scholar Professor Stuart Hall (1932-2014) including: The Politics of Black Cultural Memory, by Lisa Amanda Palmer; and “Mind the Gap”: Heritage Work in a Fractured Present, co-written by JC Niala and Johanna Zetterström-Sharp.
“Archives are not inert historical collections. They always stand in an active, dialogic relation to the questions which the present puts to the past; and the present always puts its questions differently from one generation to another.”
– Stuart Hall (“Constituting an Archive,” 2001, p. 92)
Anti-discrimination struggles and social justice activism recur as important points of focus throughout the series – centralising the life stories, collective actions and knowledge systems of historically marginalised communities. For example, essayist Corrd Marcus Brown’s writing on “Joy/Resistance” exemplifies the healing, self-actualisation and emancipatory power of ‘Black Joy’ expressiveness, drawing from his own lived experiences of change-agency, within and beyond the arts and heritage sectors.
Collaboration, new developments and future growth
In addition to individual knowledge pieces, collaborative knowledge co-production is showcased in a provocative anthology of narratives about decolonising museums and archives – addressing the question “Who does the work?”; and also exemplified in a co-authored report, Thematic Threads, discussing the benefits of peer-to-peer partnerships.
The series concludes with project summaries about how funding from Whose Knowledge? is supporting new and experimental strands of established heritage initiatives. These include: the development of a digital, AR prototype educational resource linked to the Tapestry of Black Britons project, conceived and directed by Paula Ogun Hector; funding for History Trunkies to create a digital walking tour and archives-related storytelling experience exploring anti-racist community activism in the West Midlands – titled, Smethwick 1964 – Tracing the Routes of Resistance; and funding for Diversity Lewes to undertake a community-informed, regional mapping and conservation project researching sites of Black and global majority heritage in Sussex – titled, “Protecting Monuments and Sites in South East England.”
The sharing of these published pieces offers free access to a growing hub of LAMy-related learning resources, a warm welcome to the community of practice and an open invitation to add additional perspectives to this expanding series on liberatory archives and memory.
Series editor: Carol Ann Dixon
Reference: Hall, Stuart. (2001) “Constituting an Archive.” Third Text, 15(54), 89–92. https://doi.org/10.1080/09528820108576903
About the author: Dr Carol Ann Dixon is a cultural geographer and education consultant with research interests in African and Caribbean diaspora histories, geography-art alignment, museology and the politics of heritage. She blogs at Museum Geographies: https://museumgeographies.com.
Mother Tongue – Language, Memory and Heritage
Dr. Tola Dabiri traces the genesis of this idea to the recurring discussions of mothers, their languages, and the inheritance of stories, at the April 2025 #UKCommunityofPractice convening. Since then, Dabiri has researched global changes in language diversity, examples of language loss, preservation, and safeguarding, and educational and legislative interventions.
Tapestry of Black Britons: Communities & Digital Space
The richness of British history is incomplete without paying tribute to the profound contributions of people of African descent.
Tapestry of Black Britons embodies this statement. Through our #UKCommunityofPractice convenings, founder Paula Ogun Hector was enabled to decolonise the tapestry co-creative process.
BLACK GEOGRAPHIES OF KINGS HILL, DOMINICA: A PHOTO-ESSAY
Home, heritage, and belonging – these are the threads that weave through this work. Consisting of 27,000 words of fieldnotes, analogue photographs, montage film clips, and soundscapes, “Black Geographies of Kings Hill, Dominica” is a record of the photographer’s first trip to Dominica.
Mother, Memory, History.
Through photography, poetry, and generational memory, Marcia Michael explores how maternal stories carry suppressed histories into the light and re-imagines archives as reclamation, where the Black matrilineal voice becomes both methodology and testimony.
“We, the Living Archives”
Our UK Community of Practice knowledge production series opens with “We, the Living Archives” by Dr Savita Vij reflecting on our Brighton gathering of memory workers, exploring archives as relational and emotional spaces. It emphasises archives as open, evolving, interwoven with identity, grief, creativity and collective memory.
International Archives Day 2025
The following audio reflections, recorded during the Liberatory Archives and Memory Brighton convening, feature members of the UK Community of Practice addressing the urgent question: How can we use the current political climate we’re in right now to shape the needs of memory work?