As I mentioned in the last post, there were two key insights after the first intervention. I attempted to compare them with the theoretical system of participatory archiving which I referred to.
The first insight
“In the theme of city culture, the boundaries between experts and non-experts are blurred because the cultural assets could be more dynamic and be hidden in residents’ thoughts and daily lives.”
This might occur, but is not a definite truth, because this assumption is probably influenced by the democratization of archival power (Cook, 2013). There are two broad categories in regards to the extent of democratization (Benoit and Eveleigh, 2021): first are mediated projects, which include professional and institutional mediation; second are less-/non- mediated projects, which are run by participants and community members. ArchiWenzhou belongs to the second category.
To be more specific, I adopted the thematic approach that focuses on groups underrepresented in traditional archives. Benoit and Eveleigh used the example of the South Asian American Digital Archive to explain this approach further. The archive was founded to document South Asian Americans’ experiences and specifically created outside traditional archival spaces. While actively collecting historical materials, the archive also engages with ‘digital participatory microhistory projects’(Caswell, 2014) that encourage community members to create new records by themselves.
When I decide to magnify the voices of the public rather than the authority because of the rationale behind my methodology, the shared heritage, hobbies or other common interests of citizens in Wenzhou will also be highlighted and can not be represented by the experts in the field of culture in the traditional sense.
During unit 3, I noted that some people declined my invitation because they felt themselves not literate enough to talk about ‘city culture’. However, the further explanation of this insight might be useful in the future intervention. It will probably help people break their stereotype by highlighting the importance of their voices in such a non-mediated project.
The second insight
“To motivate people’s active participation, it is good to place myself in a relatively passive position, while creating the atmosphere which triggers people’s willingness to share.”
There are no directly related academic theories under participatory archiving. However, since participatory archives are often defined as ‘community centered and self-defined’ (Benoit and Eveleigh, 2021), some useful references are possible to be obtained from the theme of community participation and empowerment.
The Wheel of Participation developed by South Lanarkshire Council ‘provides a theoretical underpinning for an open and democratic planning system that encourages the right participation techniques to achieve the identified objectives – be that information, consultation, participation and/or empowerment’ (Davidson, 1998). This framework has been applied in World Health Organization (WHO) European Healthy Cities initiative (Dooris and Heritage, 2011).
(The Wheel of Participation)
The wheel suggests the appropriate level of community involvement to achieve different objectives, rather than give any fixed instructions targeting at a completely empowered community in city planning.
It helps me realize that the way to achieve empowerment or active participation cannot be simply summarized as “being passive”. The target of my project could be further identified and guided by some concrete approaches. It is not easy to reach a conclusion right now, but hopefully it can be more clear as the project develops over the remaining time.
In addition, I discussed my research question with our language tutor Roger on Thursday. At first glance, Roger could not understand my use of “cultural significance” rather than “cultural history” because I adopted the method of archiving which usually refers to history. This helped me find the gap that I did not elaborate my motive of using archive as the tool: My focus is contemporary era but not history, but the process of archiving history could make people recollect things that matter in the modern society. Therefore, more research on the relationship between contemporary era and history will be useful to support the argumentation as well as the branding of the project.
Bibliography
Benoit, I.E. and Eveleigh, A. (2021) Participatory archives: Theory and practice. London: Facet.
Caswell, M. (2014) ‘Seeing Yourself in History: community archives and the fight against symbolic annihilation’, The Public Historian , 36 (4), pp. 26– 37.
Cook, T. (2012) ‘Evidence, memory, identity, and community: Four shifting archival paradigms’, Archival Science, 13(2–3), pp. 95–120. doi:10.1007/s10502-012-9180-7.
Davidson, S. (1998) `Spinning the wheel of empowerment’, Planning, vol 1262, 3 April, pp14–15.
Dooris, M. and Heritage, Z. (2011) ‘Healthy Cities: Facilitating the active participation and empowerment of local people’, Journal of Urban Health, 90(S1), pp. 74–91. doi:10.1007/s11524-011-9623-0.