2020 Conference

Tuesday 17 November

Addressing legacies of enslavement and colonial pasts

The demand for transparency about past activities, both externally and from within businesses, has a new prominence and archives have a crucial role to play addressing this. This session will look at initiatives which have sought to tackle these issues using business archives to explore the ongoing legacies and impacts of colonial slavery: the National Trust’s Colonial Countryside Project, and  work being done by the University of Glasgow’s Archives & Special Collections team to address issues of diversity and inclusion within collections.

Interpreting business collections and taxonomies 

This session will examine how structures of power are upheld through the ways in which archive collections are categorised, sorted and viewed, suggesting new ways of looking that help to challenge and undo the colonial framework of archive management. Using the examples of two business archives– that of Thomas Cook and Pan American Airways – these papers seek to challenge traditional taxonomies and lenses, reflecting on different ways of seeing the world through collections with centred upon perceptions of foreign people and lands, suggesting new methodologies for the future.

Wednesday 18 November 

Whose history is it anyway?

The activities of UK businesses have long taken them overseas. In some locations, British businesses even acted as quasi-institutions of the State. The resulting records of these activities and interactions are usually kept within the UK, despite such archives containing significant information on the social, economic and business development of other countries.

Our session on Wednesday will begin with a selection of short case studies in which users will describe collections they have used in the UK to explore the societies and economies of other countries. This will be followed by a workshop ‘Race and Records after Empire’ led byDr James Lowry which will explore how race and racism play out in custodial arrangements. It will examine conceptualisations of provenance in archival theory to question current custodial arrangements. Participants will learn about approaches to shared archival heritage, and critically review their own collections with a view to taking decolonising actions.