Conference Agenda

The memory of senior employees reflects key 20th- and 21st-century evolutions, making its preservation vital for companies, researchers and public opinion. In 2024, Perles d’Histoire and the Observatoire B2V des Mémoires led a project on senior Michelin employees, using innovative methodologies and AI. Focused on identity, knowledge, and data management, this initiative highlights the evolving role of archivists in managing memories and preserving corporate identity amid societal changes.

The memory of senior employees represents a critical issue for companies and organizations. It reflects, through its psychological, cultural, and sensory dimensions, the social, economic, and technological evolutions that trace the major milestones of the history of 20th- and 21st-century. In the context of significant societal changes, the collection and transmission of these memories attract the attention of various stakeholders from the economic and social spheres. Companies reflect on their identity and heritage, researchers explore scientific inquiries, and public opinion engages in a debate about the role of seniors in contemporary society. In this context, archivists are called upon to propose new methodologies and innovative solutions to ensure the collection and transmission of this living memory, particularly by leveraging digital technologies and artificial intelligence. Drawing on our experience in this field, we propose to present an ambitious living memory collection project focused on senior employees of the Michelin Group. This project was carried out in 2024 by Perles d’Histoire and the Observatoire B2V des Mémoires, collaboration with scholars from various research centers specializing in history, psychology, and memory studies. In this presentation, we aim to showcase the results of this initiative, which enabled the development of a new methodology and opened up research perspectives around three main axes:

• Axis 1 – Memories of Lives and Identities: Collecting individual narratives to study collective memory and identity dimensions.

• Axis 2 – Gestures and Knowledge: Capturing and analyzing technical gestures to capitalize on knowledge and ensure the transmission of expertise.

• Axis 3 – Complex Data and Knowledge Management: Leveraging digital tools and artificial intelligence to analyze and extract strategic information.

This proposal fits fully within Sub-theme 1 Managing Memories / Preserving Identities by exploring how the collection and preservation of senior employees' life stories contribute to memory management and identity conservation. Moreover, it highlights the evolving role that 21st-century archivists are expected to play in this transmission process.

This study examines digital archives efforts with Thailand's Moklen indigenous and marginalized sea people communities through the "Moklen Community Language and Culture Repository" project. While digital archives offer new opportunities for preserving intangible heritage, challenges persist in adapting frameworks to indigenous needs. Findings emphasize community-focused outcomes and the need for archives to support advocacy including land rights.

Digital archives can be a useful tool for preserving indigenous language and culture, especially for cultures in the oral tradition culture, where knowledge transmission is intangible. These digital spaces transform traditional physical archives—often perceived as colonial spaces—into more accessible platforms for storing and disseminating intangible cultural heritage. Despite the freedom enabled by technology, some research and archives frameworks still do not fit the norms or nature of these indigenous communities. This disconnect manifests as “archival intangibility”—a condition where indigenous archival needs and practices remain inadequately understood within mainstream policies and frameworks. This paper examines findings from the “Moklen Community Language and Culture Repository” project, a multidisciplinary initiative developing a digital repository for marginalized Moklen indigenous sea people communities in southern Thailand. Through qualitative research methods including interviews and participant observation, as well as the development of a digital linguistic and cultural archives.

The research is multidisciplinary research from linguistics, folklore, photography, and archives management. The primary benefit of the project is an intangible cultural heritage digital archives encompassing language, oral history, photographs, cultural practices, and researchers’ own outputs. The research findings also revealed several challenges in current archival research policies and practices regarding indigenous communities. The study identifies three areas requiring attention: the need to prioritize community-focused outcomes, particularly sustainable economic development; the limitations of conventional research ethics protocols in facilitating genuine engagement with marginalized groups; and the inherently political nature of archival work, which demands active contribution to community advocacy, including land rights initiatives.

The widespread adoption of instant messaging platforms like WhatsApp, Telegram, Instagram, and Facebook has transformed modern communication, creating new opportunities to document personal and professional events. However, archiving such content presents challenges related to context, privacy, formats, and metadata. This study examines emerging policies and proposes strategies to preserve these interactions, offering practical tools for managing and archiving personal digital correspondence.

The widespread adoption of instant messaging, through platforms such as WhatsApp and Telegram, collaboration tools such as Google Meet and Microsoft Teams, and direct messaging features on social media such as Instagram and Facebook, represents a significant shift in communication. Texting has evolved from paper to e-mail to today’s instant messaging, providing a more immediate way of communicating for personal and professional purposes, and enabling the use of images, video and voice messages. Leading institutions, such as the Digital Preservation Coalition, the National Archives of Australia and the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, have highlighted the importance of archiving instant messaging as a record, as evidence of government or business decisions and as personal memories. Correspondence on these platforms provides valuable insights into the interactions of individuals, whether they are scientists, writers, artists or politicians; it offers a unique perspective on events that may have historical and documentary value in the present and future. However, concerns have arisen about the accessibility and preservation of these records, which are becoming an increasingly important part of historical memory; without a methodological archival approach, valuable correspondence may remain inaccessible. To preserve this valuable heritage, archivists should answer many questions. How long will these platforms exist and be used? What is worth keeping? How should archivists preserve them? If these interactions are not preserved, what sources will tomorrow’s historians use to reconstruct contemporary events?

This research aims to identify the current state of the art and the emerging policies, analysing critical issues, including preserving context and related information, appraisal criteria, privacy, file formats and metadata. The goal is to offer advice and recommendations for managing and preserving the various kinds of instant messaging, providing an online handbook for those interested

In the Syrian pursuit of truth and justice after the end of the dictatorship in 2024 records, documentation and archives play a central role. The Prisons Museum, founded by Syrians in exile, delivers a unique documentary approach to accountability with filmed site documentation, left-behind records, and former prisoner interviews. The presentation introduces the methodology and cutting-edge technology use of this digital records and archive accountability effort.

With the fall of the Assad regime in December of 2024, the pursuit of truth and justice are central elements on the road to a democratic Syria. Archives and documentation are an indispensable tool in addressing the crimes of the regime. The revolutionary circumstance of the fall of Assad lead to a chaotic opening of the prisons and much documentary evidence being exposed to a great variety of actors, with losses, destruction, and disappearance. The Prisons Museum, founded by Syrians in exile, delivers a unique documentary approach to accountability with sources such as filmed site documentation, left-behind records, and former prisoner interviews. It first applied its methodology to the prisons of the “Islamic State” in Iraq and Syria and now moves on to the regime prisons, presenting its investigations via a virtual museum to the public. The presentation introduces the methodology and cutting-edge technology use of this digital records and archive accountability effort.