“Displaced archives”: proposing a research agenda

Abstract

AbstractIn the opening keynote speech at the Eighth International Conference on the History of Records and Archives (I-CHORA 8) in Melbourne, Australia, the author provided an overview of archival displacement as an historical phenomenon, before concentrating on postcolonial cases and arguing for a fuller global history of the displacement of archives during decolonisation. The talk concluded with some thoughts on future directions for research on displaced archives. Understanding the term “displaced archives” to refer to any records that have been removed from the context of their creation and whose ownership is disputed, this short article elaborates further upon a potential research agenda for displaced archives, which remains an under-researched area in archival studies.