Paper short abstract:

This paper explicits the strategies used by the Belgian colonial administration to blur personal and collective history of mixed European-African descents in archives. Additionnaly, it raises epistemic, ethical, and legal issues raised by the accessibility of and digitization of such archives.

Paper long abstract:

In 2019, the Belgian Federal Government endorsed the research project ‘Résolution-Métis’ to shed light on the segregation and forced separations experienced by people of mixed European-African descent, hereafter métis, born during the Belgian colonisation in Congo and ‘Ruanda-Urundi’ between 1885 and 1962. Supported by various associations, researchers, and parliamentary deputies, this endorsement resulted from a long struggle primarily led by the métis and their relatives, who claimed their right to reconstruct their personal and collective history that colonial authorities deliberately intended to blur for decades.

Throughout the colonisation, colonial or religious authorities used a series of strategies to manage the life of métis, producing archives that legitimized their actions. First, the colonial administration carried out invasive paternity inquiries. While they sought to identify European fathers, Belgian authorities also used the inquiries to establish mothers’ reputation and judge their ability to care for a child. Secondly, colonial and religious authorities sometimes falsified the identity of métis who were not recognized by their father, further erasing their filiation. Thirdly, especially at the end of colonisation, they set up protocols to send métis children and teenagers to Europe. For that, they sought to obtain the mothers’ administrative consent using different means of pressure, particularly financial ones. Based on cases of métis from Ruanda-Urundi, the aim of this paper is twofold. First, it seeks to explicit the strategies used by the colonial administration (invasiveness, falsification, pressure) and their transcription in archives. Second, it opens questions about epistemic, ethical, and legal issues raised by the accessibility of and digitization of such archives, not only for scientific purposes but also for the métis themselves. Indeed, more than 350 métis and their descendants have come to the archive since the end of 2019 to retrace their personal and family histories.

Paper short abstract:

This paper reflects on the archival practices developed during the DIGICOLJUST- project. The project revolves around the conservation and exploration of the archives of the military courts of colonial Congo (1885-1960). They document a cruel history of colonial violence, oppression and coercion.

Paper long abstract:

The paper reflects on the archival practices developed during the DIGICOLJUST- project. DIGICOLJUST, currently in its second phase, is a BESLPO-funded project that combines insights from archival heritage preservation and colonial history research to preserve and explore the archives of the military courts of the Congo Free State (1885-1908) and the Belgian Congo (1908-1960). These archives constitute a sensitive and contested part of the colonial "displaced" public archives held at the Belgian State Archives. They consist of more than 5,500 case files produced by the dozens of military courts that existed during Congo’s colonial era. These trial records often document cruel events of colonial violence, oppression and coercion. The archivist must thus be aware of the sensitivities in making this archive accessible.

First, the paper will outline what has been done so far to make the archives of these military courts (known as conseils de guerre) accessible. It will analyse the choices made in the creation of contemporary research tools. I will especially consider the decision not to identify court cases through the defendants' names. In this way, I question how privacy concerns relate to the issue of accessibility.

Secondly, the paper will critically examine our initiatives to provide Congolese citizens with access to this shared archival heritage. In line with what Michael Karabinos (2019) has argued for other colonial archives in European institutions, I wonder whether our decision to fully digitize all court cases of the Conseil de Guerre de Léopoldville hasn't given us a false sense of satisfaction.

Paper short abstract:

I analyze digitization of Lusophone colonial rural archives in Portugal and Angola, emphasizing fascist rule, colonial counter-insurgency, and post-independence war. I make relational comparisons of Africa- and Angola-specific digitization in Germany, Belgium, the UK, France and the US.

Paper long abstract:

This presentation analyzes the varied experiences of digitizing Lusophone colonial rural archives across a dozen institutions in Portugal and Angola. The importance and challenges of such digitization are highlighted in relation to the salience of Portuguese fascist rule, rural colonial counter-insurgency, and post-independence conflicts. I draw on my research over the past 15 years on the causes and consequences of the rural 1961 anticolonial revolt in Angola’s cotton lowlands, the Baixa de Kasanje, on the border with the DR Congo. On the one hand, Angola has a uniquely deep historical record from the 1500s onwards, but on the other hand the 40 years of largely rural armed conflict 1961-2002 constrained research and destroyed archives. This renders problematic the seductive but simplistic elisions of legacies of trade in enslaved people with 20th century experiences of war and violence (historical ‘leap frogging’), especially prominent in claims about historical legacies and institutional inertia. In contrast, my Kasanje research illustrates how digitization is necessary to help reconstruct dynamic rural historical geographies of rural areas of the poor majority that were historically marginalized and often continue to be so. Digitized maps and legal gazettes offer broader applicability. This has implications for both dignity and popular engagement/mobilization. This also contrasts with focuses on only more well-documented areas, often prominent but restricted violent extractive sites involving only a relatively small fraction of rural society, usually disproportionately male. Throughout, I make relational comparisons with Africa- and Angola-specific digitization efforts in Germany, Belgium, the UK, France and the US.

Paper short abstract:

This paper discusses the digital curation of African colonial film cultures. Starting with a critical analysis of the platforms Archivio Luce and Colonial Film, I consider how European archives function as information gatekeepers and memory agents in the circulation of colonial films.

Paper long abstract:

Taking as example the platforms Archivio Luce and Colonial Film, this paper focuses on the digital circulation, curation and presentation of African colonial film cultures. I reflect on how through these platforms Italian and British film institutions act as information gatekeepers (Gracy 2007) in the circulation of colonial films and as memory agents (Brunow 2017) in the formation of their historiographies. Looking at digital curating of colonial audiovisual documents in a postcolonial perspective, one can detect different forms of tacit violence and discrimination encoded in archival acts (Azoulay 2019). Functioning as the main transnational circulation networks for colonial films, digital platforms are relevant frameworks in which colonial films are experienced, historiographies around colonial films are created, and collective memories are activated. Although online digital access seems to permit an unlimited and free accessibility to colonial film cultures, the infrastructural and technological conditions of existence of digital platforms reveal the contradictions of that promise. How can a restitution policy/politic for colonial films look like, considering the reproductive nature of the medium film, the hybrid ontology of the film original and the affordances of digital platforms? Can digital presentation and online access be considered a form of restitution or does it reiterate neocolonial dynamics? Should restitution imply a repatriation of original materials after digitization? These questions can be better addressed in the frame of an exchange of knowledge and practices between institutional actors and stakeholders involved in specific cases accompanied by an open discussion in the public debate.