CFP: Archival Education and Human Rights

Call for Submissions: Special Issue on Archival Education and Human Rights

InterActions: UCLA Journal of Education and Information Studies

In a recent article in American Archivist, a group of some two-dozen archival faculty and doctoral students from programs around the world called on archival educators to develop a new educational framework that both reflects and reflects upon pluralist approaches to archival theory and practice.1 This article added to an ongoing conversation in archival education regarding the ethical imperative of faculty to engage students with culturally sensitive curricula and to promote a social justice agenda in and outside the classroom. At the same time, a growing body of archival studies literature has addressed the intersection of archives and human rights, interrogating the role of records and recordkeeping institutions in both facilitating human rights violations and holding oppressive regimes legally and historically accountable for such violations.

This special issue of InterActions seeks to bring together these two streams of archival thought in hopes of explicating the role of human rights and social justice in archival education. How are we to conceive of human rights at the nexus of archival education, research, and action? What ethical responsibilities do archival educators have in addressing human rights concerns in the classroom? What pedagogical strategies might educators employ in order to include discussions about human rights and archives within the context of professional training and practices, and the theories that undergird them? InterActions seeks to include a range of submissions, including (but not limited to) research articles, literature reviews, book reviews, exhibition reviews, featured commentaries, and position pieces. Submissions should incorporate critical perspectives that aim to bridge multiple discourses around the theme of the issue. All submissions will be subject to double-blind peer-review and authors are expected to adhere to the deadlines to ensure the timely publication of the special issue.

Possible research questions:
– How might “human rights” be defined in the context of archival education? What are the opportunities and difficulties of adopting an orientation toward human rights in archival education?
– What is the relationship between a social justice agenda and a human rights framework in the archival classroom? What roles might information technologies play in working toward classroom agendas for extending and supporting human rights?
– What theoretical positions might be taken up when considering the current and future state of research in the domains of human rights and archival education?
– What philosophical, pedagogical, political, and/or ethical questions are at play that might provide opportunities for strategic action?
– How might archival educators incorporate human rights genealogies and/or frameworks?
– What are the implications of globalization on discourses on human rights in archival education?
– How might archival education and/or human rights intersect with the roles and responsibilities of educational institutions within the public sector?

Timeline:
– Deadline for Submissions: January 15, 2012
– Tentative deadline for peer reviews of submitted manuscripts: March 15, 2012
– Tentative deadline for revisions to submitted manuscript: April 30, 2012
– Publication date for the Special Issue on Human Rights: Early June 2012

Please submit manuscripts at http://escholarship.org/uc/gseis_interactions or directly to the email addresses below. Any questions or inquiries about the special issue may be directed to:
– Andrew J Lau (UCLA; Information Studies Editor for InterActions):
andrewjlau@ucla.edu
– Michelle Caswell (University of Wisconsin, Madison; Guest Editor):
mcaswell@wisc.edu
– InterActions: interactions@gseis.ucla.edu

InterActions is a peer-reviewed on-line journal committed to the promotion of interdisciplinary and critical scholarship. Edited by students in the UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, the journal brings together senior and emerging scholars, activists, and professionals whose work covers a broad range of theory and practice. InterActions is published twice yearly with funding provided by the UCLA Graduate Students Association and the UCLA Graduate School of Education & Information Studies.

For more information, please visit http://escholarship.org/uc/gseis_interactions.