Paper short abstract:

This article examines the various political roles played by the archives - and the process of archiving- of a Sudanese civil society organization that has collected documents about the purges of the former autocratic regime in Sudan (1989-2019).

Paper long abstract:

This article examines the various political roles played by the archives - and the process of archiving- of a Sudanese civil society organization named the Excutive Committee of the Dismissed. The Committee, established in 1997, has collected thousands of documents about people who claim to have been unfairly dismissed from the civil service during the former authoritarian regime of Omar al-Bashir (1989-2019).

Based on interviews with the members of this organization conducted in 2019, analysis of their documentation, and secondary sources, the paper demonstrate how those archives turned from a discrete practice of contention under the authoritarian regime into a tool for governance during the political transition kickstarted by the fall of Omar al-Bashir in April 2019. It also reflexively analyze the process of digitization of those archives I engaged in as a foreign researcher in Sudan, explaining how the meanings and potential impacts of this project were also transformed by political events, including the brutal interruption of the transition by a military coup in October 2021.

To conclude, this paper aims to contribute to the current reflexion on African archives and on a "digitization rush" by highligting how those archives on a little investigated topic provide us not only with insight into how people navigated the regime and opposed it in various ways, but also on how researchers become embedded into political processes that question their role and ethics.