Community engagement through cultural archiving: exploring the preconditions for a community-oriented cultural archival practice in Flanders (Belgium)
Geerd De Ceulaerde
This article responds to the calls of Evangelestia-Dougherty, Williams, and Punzalan, and elaborates on Bastian’s model of cultural archiving to broaden and deepen practices of community-based archiving. Through literature and case-study research into cultural archival practices in Flanders (Belgium), this article explores the ontological conditions preceding the practice of institutional cultural archiving. Recommendations are formulated to develop a community-oriented institutional archival practice that is responsive to how cultural memory operates, to what constitutes the community record, and to the need to not only talk with communities but also to engage in connection between communities.

Three insights are presented. Firstly, the strategy of community-based archiving needs to incorporate the model of cultural archiving, emphasizing the ‘archiving’ of the community record. Secondly, a relevant and proactive institutional attitude is required that focusses through outreach on the boundary-spanning capacities of the community record, rather than on strengthening the boundary markers. Finally, an institutional cultural archival praxis is perceived as a laboratory for discussing perspectives on the making of memory and meaning, with a focus on intercommunity and intercultural recognition. Since these preconditions for implementing such a praxis are not yet met in the field, this article refrains from concrete techno-practical discussions but encourages further research and practical experiments.

The author of this article is employed at a local public archival institution in a small to medium-sized city in the Flemish region of Belgium. Additionally, the author is affiliated with the University of Antwerp, where he works on a dissertation on the role of archives in society. From the positioning that public institutional archival institutions have a societal responsibility, the article focuses on the practical implementation of the calls made by Evangelestia-Dougherty, Williams, and Punzalan
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