Conference Agenda

Irish Travellers, an indigenous minority with distinct culture and traditions, were recognized as an ethnic group in 2017 but have long faced systemic discrimination. UCC Library houses several archives, which document Traveller life in the 1960s and 1970s. Efforts to diversify access include visits by Traveller advocacy groups, fostering engagement and pride in Traveller heritage. These initiatives, alongside ongoing collaborations, aim to promote equity, storytelling, and education.

An indigenous minority, Travellers have been a part of Irish society for centuries. With their long-shared history, cultural values, language, and customs, they are a distinct and self-defined group, traditionally nomadic. Travellers were formally recognised as an ethnic group by the Irish State in 2017. The Irish Traveller Community has long faced systemic discrimination, marginalisation, and bias in law enforcement and public perception. Over the past decades, legally binding decisions about their preferred lifestyle have been made without the input of members from the community, leading to displacement and forcing Travellers to settle and assimilate.

University College Cork Library is home to several notable photographic archives, including the Alen MacWeeney Photographic Collection. MacWeeney spent several years (1965-1967) documenting the Irish Traveller Community with his camera and audio recorder, creating an invaluable record of a lifestyle that no longer exists. While MacWeeney’s photographs transcend the mere document, conversations around the ethics of documentary photography—the outsider observing—have been fervent.

In an effort to diversify beyond the academic community it is paramount to include Travellers in these conversations about their own identity and remove perceived barriers of access to the collections. To start, members from the Cork Traveller Visibility Group and Traveller Women’s Network visited UCC Library's Special Collections and Archives to see a selection of MacWeeney’s photographs, as well as items from the collection of writer and educator Bryan MacMahon. The latter includes correspondence between MacMahon, a lifelong advocate for Irish Travellers, and numerous members from within the community. MacMahon is one of few outsiders who spoke the ‘secret’ language Cant (or Shelta) and his archive includes a handwritten ‘dictionary’. This document amplifies the wealth of knowledge held in UCC Library for current and future generations to learn from the past and take pride in their heritage.

Interest in these incredible materials from students and academics has been fruitful but equity and new engagement with Traveller advocacy organisations has been especially rewarding and overwhelmingly positive. Additional collaborations and outreach events are in progress that will offer opportunities for education, storytelling, and partnership.

This presentation examines the Yezidi Archive Project, a digital photographic and oral history archival initiative dedicated to documenting, preserving, and sharing the histories of the Yezidi people in Iraq and the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI). Founded by a multidisciplinary team of researchers, journalists, documentarians, architects, and designers, the project explores Yezidi mnemonic and visual culture while addressing the deep lasting impact of the 2014 genocide perpetrated by ISIS.

This presentation examines the Yezidi Archive Project, a digital photographic and oral history archival initiative dedicated to documenting, preserving, and sharing the histories of the Yezidi people in Iraq and the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI). Founded by a multidisciplinary team of researchers, journalists, documentarians, architects, and designers, the project explores Yezidi mnemonic and visual culture while addressing the deep lasting impact of the 2014 genocide perpetrated by ISIS.

Beyond the immense human cost of these events, ISIS also destroyed Yezidi cultural and religious sites, erasing key spaces of intergenerational memory and displacing entire communities. The Yezidi Archive Project responds to this crisis by safeguarding and making accessible historical materials to counteract cultural erasure. Given the precarious status of Yezidi visual records—many of which exist in fragile, ephemeral forms, stored on mobile phones or in personal collections at risk of degradation—the project prioritizes their preservation. The 2014 genocide and widespread displacement further disrupted intergenerational knowledge transmission, making visual culture a vital tool for maintaining identity, history, and collective memory.

To address this loss, the Yazidi Archive Project undertakes two key and interlinked initiatives. First, through fieldwork in Iraq and the KRI, it implements a post-custodial archival approach, digitizing materials while ensuring original records remain within the community. This method fosters local ownership and participatory archival practices, embedding Yezidi community members in the process through training, support, and collective decision-making. Rather than preserving materials primarily for external institutions, the initiative promotes cultural agency through on-the-ground activities (exhibitions, distribution of historical images, community events), empowering Yezidis to shape their own histories and sustain their culture.

Second, the project conducts research in Western heritage institutions to identify and repatriate historical visual materials to Yezidi communities. Many historical photographs and records of Yezidi life, including some of the oldest collections of images of the community, exist in archives outside Iraq. These photographs date back to the late 19th and early 20th centuries and are stored in fragile nitrate negatives requiring urgent conservation and digitization. By reclaiming these materials, the project strengthens local historical consciousness, facilitates community access, and reconnects Yezidis with their past on their own terms.

Beyond preservation, the project also engages in artistic interventions and community-driven metadata production, ensuring that archival materials are interpreted through Yezidi epistemologies rather than imposed external frameworks. As Yezidis navigate the challenges of displacement and reconstruction, in the aftermath of mass violence, visual culture serves as a means of asserting a distinct ethno-religious identity, resisting assimilation into broader nationalist narratives and reinforcing cultural continuity in the face of erasure.

This presentation offers critical insights into the ethical and methodological complexities of participatory archival work in post-conflict settings. By examining the Yezidi Archive Project’s post-custodial approach, it highlights the tensions between external documentation and local historical authority while demonstrating how archival practices can foster cultural agency. At the intersection of oral traditions, photographic practices, and emergent methodologies, this research contributes to broader discussions on memory, displacement, and the role of visual materials in cultural survival.

This study takes the archives of residents' migration under seasonal flood disasters in southern China from 2019-2024 as the research object, explores the role played by the archives in the identification of residents during flood migration, and concludes a model of experience that can be replicated as a result. Providing a Chinese solution to the problem of identifying residents after catastrophic migrations.

Against the backdrop of global climate change, seasonal floods have become more frequent, and the resulting migration of residents has become increasingly significant. In this context, migrating residents not only face dramatic changes in their living environment, but also face serious challenges to their identity. Every summer, the Yangtze River Basin in China generates persistent rainfall and floods, and the residents form a huge archive of the flood discharge area, migrants, migration routes, and residents' resettlement during the flood relief and resettlement process.

This study aims to explore the key role played by archives in empowering the identity of migrating residents and to uncover solutions with Chinese characteristics. Using a combination of documentary research, field research and case studies, the study examines a number of areas in China affected by seasonal flooding and where residents have migrated.

It is found that archives, with their rich connotation and unique function, show an irreplaceable value in the construction of identity for migrating residents. By going back to the archives, the residents can regain the memory of their hometowns and thus maintain their original identity at the psychological level. At the same time, in the new living environment, the local government and relevant departments use the archives to provide migrant residents with proof of their rights and interests, helping them to quickly integrate into the local society and establish a new sense of belonging.

Based on these findings, China has developed a series of practical programmes. These include the establishment of a special archive management system for migrant residents and the strengthening of the collection, arrangement and protection of relevant archival resources; the use of modern information technology to achieve the digital sharing of archival resources, so as to make it easier for residents to access them at any time; and the promotion of the integration of archival culture with the culture of the local community, and the organisation of all kinds of archive-related cultural activities, so as to enhance the cultural identity of residents in their new environment. These Chinese solutions provide an effective path for solving the identity problems of migrating residents in the face of seasonal flooding, and also contribute valuable experience to the global response to similar problems.

Implementar narrativas colaborativas desde los archivos de derechos humanos como herramienta para el reconocimiento de los archivos comunitarios, contribuye en la generación de espacios de acercamiento desde los diferentes soportes documentales a la visibilización de los archivos de derechos humanos en el marco del conflicto armado, como herramientas de alfabetización social, contribuyendo asi al fomento de la paz y fortaleciendo las acciones de justicia, reparación y no repetición en Colombia.

El deber de memoria del Estado colombiano se centra en garantizar los derechos de las víctimas del conflicto armado interno a la verdad, la justicia, la reparación y la no repetición. Asimismo, busca esclarecer los contextos en los que se ha desarrollado el conflicto y las resistencias que han emergido en respuesta a este. Para ello, se recopilan y elaboran documentos en diversos soportes y formatos, además de crearse y registrarse procesos investigativos y de reconocimiento de lugares, hechos y responsables en el marco del conflicto armado colombiano.

Es importante señalar que este deber de memoria no es exclusivo del Estado, sino que también constituye un interés fundamental para las víctimas del conflicto armado interno. Para ellas, los archivos representan una herramienta clave que documenta hechos y testimonios esenciales para la reconstrucción de la identidad nacional y regional. En este sentido, los archivos comunitarios se configuran como el resultado de las luchas y resistencias de personas, comunidades y organizaciones sociales que han trabajado por preservar la memoria histórica.

Ahora bien, en cuanto al uso y la apropiación social de los archivos comunitarios y su reconocimiento en la sociedad, surge una pregunta clave: ¿cómo pueden los archivos de derechos humanos que reposan en las comunidades integrarse en narrativas pedagógicas que expongan estas experiencias y saberes, promoviendo su uso y apropiación por parte de las víctimas, el Estado y la ciudadanía en general?

Es asi como, la preservación de la memoria colectiva es fundamental para el fortalecimiento del tejido social. En este contexto, se han buscado herramientas de aprendizaje que funcionen como dispositivos pedagógicos para el reconocimiento de los archivos comunitarios en el marco del conflicto armado en Colombia. Se ha identificado que una de las formas más efectivas de apropiación social es la elaboración de narrativas colaborativas, que, a través del reconocimiento de archivos en soportes físicos y digitales, han permitido acercar a la ciudadanía a estos acervos. De este modo, los archivos comunitarios se consolidan como fuentes fundamentales para la comprensión de las luchas y resistencias, enmarcadas en la construcción de un relato común.

En esta ponencia, se socializará la experiencia realizada en las ferias regionales del libro de Cúcuta, Medellín y Pasto en Colombia, al implementar narrativas colaborativas desde los archivos de derechos Humanos como herramienta para el reconocimiento de los archivos comunitarios. Es a través de talleres interactivos, que se generaron espacios de acercamiento a los archivos mediante ejercicios de escritura creativa y el reconocimiento de fotografías y negativos como soportes documentales para narrar la memoria. Además, se implementó la técnica del escaneo de negativos desde el celular lo cual fomentó que de manera cotidiana existiera el acercamiento por parte de la ciudadanía a este tipo de soportes, permitiendo visibilizar su valor histórico y cultural.

Este proceso confirmó la necesidad de crear herramientas pedagógicas que contribuyeran a la alfabetización social en archivos de derechos humanos, fomentando, forrtaleciendo y visibilizando, acciones que contribuyen a la paz, la justicia, la reparación y la no repetición en Colombia.