This point was stated and demonstrated from different angles by participants at the International Conference on Archiving, Memory and Method from the Global South (AMM 2024) held at Yusuf Lule CTF auditorium, Makerere University on October 17-19, 2024.
“An archive is not just a physical space, but also a political space. Archiving is a political project, and being able to own some of the debates in society,” Prof Josephine Ahikire, a member of the organizing committee, said at the opening ceremony.
The three-day conference was hosted by the college of Humanities and Social Sciences and financially supported by the Mellon Foundation. It witnessed 221 participants from 15 countries: Botswana, Burundi, Ethiopia, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, South Korea, UAE, Uganda, UK, USA and Zimbabwe.
The opening ceremony included a launch of three books by Makerere University scholars and published by Fountain Publishers and a tour of the exhibition tents. The new books were The Promise of Linguistics and Language Studies in Africa, Jua Kali Discourses, and a special edition of Mawazo journal (Vol. 16 No. 1, 2024).
The conference tackled challenges and deficiencies in archiving in the global South, dogged by colonial biases and hangovers, lack of political will and appreciation by post-independence governments, and the stubborn behaviour of former colonial masters to let go of migrated, or stolen, heritage.
Much as archives are the cornerstone of history, providing context and depth to understanding of the past, a foundation upon which history is built, the preoccupations of the person or institution that compiles them and the method they use determine a lot of things.
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