Archives of Human Rights and Historical Memory

This project focuses on Colombia, with specific reference to symbolic reparations, which are a fundamental part of the peace process. Symbolic reparation for human rights abuses includes the act of listening to victims, the recording of testimonies, and the preservation of archives of this material. The role of symbolic reparations in transitional contexts is increasingly being recognised as just as important as material reparations, due to their potential to promote redress, foster solidarity, reweave a community's social fabric, and restore the dignity of victims and survivors.
Within this context, archives of human rights and historical memory have a particularly important role to play, given that they are instruments for recording testimony and experiences of the conflict. Moreover, they are formally recognized in Colombia as one of the mechanisms for transitional justice, to ensure the guarantees for the victims of truth, justice, full reparation and non-repetition.
Informed by these recommendations, our project engages with four NGOs which have created their own archives. The archives with which we will work are often fragmented; are often housed in unofficial catalogues or spaces; are often vulnerable, both to material deterioration, due to environmental factors such as humidity and heat, and to digital loss, due to inadequate digital backups; are at risk due to the continuation of armed conflict in some areas, and threats to local community leaders and curators of these same archives; and are in need of organization and preservation. This project aims to address this need by providing a robust mechanism for the archiving of these resources. We do so through a tailored, participatory approach, in which we work with the NGOs in a genuinely collaborative manner throughout.
Firstly, we will undertake meetings with these NGOs to understand fully their needs, and start to develop the concepts informing our proposed toolkit. This will involve interviews and questionnaires with them, as well as wider discussion, around the issues they have encountered when: recording testimony from victims; collating testimonies; and preserving testimony and other memory materials.
Following on from this, we will design and develop a toolkit, entitled The Memory Box: Toolkit for the Curation and Preservation of Human Rights and Historical Memory Archives. This toolkit will contain pedagogical and practical materials, encompassing how to undertake memory workshops; how to undertake archiving workshops; best practice for the digitization of resources; and the basic elements needed for successful archival preservation.
A pilot version of this toolkit will be prepared, and then launched and tested with the four NGOs collaborating with us on this project. At this pilot stage, an event will be held with each NGO to test out the toolkit, discuss how it would work or be adapted for their particular context or needs, and flag up any particular concerns or needs for amendment to the toolkit.
Subsequently, building on the feedback gained at these pilot events, we will refine the toolkit, and produce the finalized version. We will then formally launch the finalized toolkit, which will enable these and other NGOs to develop best practice for the management of their own archives, the tools for them to begin to manage their own processes of curation, and the best practice for the digitization of their resources.
An important next step in our project is to set in train a series of steps to ensure the understanding of, and societal use of, these archives and resources within the context of the armed conflict in Colombia, and we will organize public-facing events to enable the visibility, sharing and societal use of these existing archives. Finally, we will launch a network of managers and curators of Human Rights and Historical Memory Archives to ensure legacy and continuing impact.

The main beneficiaries from this project comprise: 4 specific NGOs working in Colombia in the areas of human rights, historical memory and gender; a broader range of third sector organisations at national level; international bodies that promote gender, human rights, and archival work; and local communities and the general public.
Regarding firstly the 4 specific NGOs - Organización Femenina Popular, Red de Mujeres Victimas, Fundación Guagua and Zoscua - they will benefit by taking an active role in the development of the project, and also from their implementation of the Toolkit, which will improve their practices of curation of their archives, and manage their own processes of curation and digitization going forward. They will also gain from increased public awareness and societal use of their archives, increasing their visibility. In addition to this they will also benefit by playing a key role in multiplying the uptake of the toolkit, sharing the knowledge acquired, and being a position to offer courses in conservation and curation of human rights archives to other organizations; these courses could be offered at a relatively low cost, but still generate much-needed income for these NGOs.
Regarding other third sector bodies at national level, we will engage with other similar third sector bodies, both through the existing networks of our 4 chosen NGOs, and through relevant national mailing lists, including those of the Ruta Pacifica. There is a wide range of organisations, museums, archives and memory initiatives across Colombia who would benefit enormously from implementing the toolkit and whom we will invite to the national launch of the toolkit. We will run questionnaires and a focus group with any other body who attends the national launch, and similar follow-up questionnaires.
After the end of the funding period, we envisage this group of beneficiaries, as with the four NGOs mentioned above, will be making active use of the toolkit, and implementing changes to their practice in line with its recommendations. Their policy and practice on managing their archives will have improved, and their archives will be in a less vulnerable state. Moreover, they will have been empowered to take active ownership of the process of management and curation of their archives.
As regards international impact, the principal beneficiaries are international organisations that work to support the use of archives and memory in human rights contexts. We have identified two such organisations: the first of these is international, with a specific focus on gender (the International Association of Women's Museums), for whom we will author a submission for their website, detailing the results for one of the NGOs as a case study (the OFP), with a focus on how the OFP manages its archive in relation to its museum. The second is a regional arm of an international federation, with a particular focus on human rights (Latin American Regional Forum of the Federation of International Human Rights Museums), for whom we will co-author a guide setting out generic recommendations for museums working with archiving human rights materials.
A further important group of beneficiaries is the communities in which the NGOs are located, and the general public. These comprise local community groups, schools groups, and other sectors of the general public, who will be invited to the public-facing events at each NGO location. Our project will have an impact on these groups and communities in terms of awareness-raising and increased access to the archives and resources, which will, in turn, contribute to helping support democracy in that access to and understanding of testimonies is viewed as an essential component of the non-repetition of armed conflict.