A Community of Narratives: Contextualizing the Archives through Oral History

The boundaries that distinguish different archival ventures have recently become less distinct, thereby allowing institutional archives to engage with community collections in new and innovative ways. In order to investigate the challenges and possibilities posed by such a framework, this study examines the Arts-in-Corrections community and its archival collection as a case study within the environment of a university archives. The research employs oral history as one method to test the viability of inviting community participation in democratizing and contextualizing the archives. The study finds that oral histories invite new or undocumented perspectives into the archives and introduces entirely fresh ways of describing archival collections; additionally, oral narratives provide the contextual significance of community collection that are taken into institutional archives. Accordingly, the analysis of this research examines the implications of community-institution integration by reframing the traditional archival discourse on provenance, custody, and access. The study ultimately invites archivists to envision and advocate for institution-community collaborations that are ethical, participatory, and more democratic.