At this roundtable symposium, feminist historical and legal researchers working with legal archives will reflect on their research practices and discuss some of the ethical and political issues associated with archival scholarship.

What ethical obligations do historians owe to the dead, and their families, when writing narrative non-fiction accounts based on coronial inquiries?

What obligations does one have to disrupt and expose the violence of institutional archival processes when doing work with police narrative records concerning women offenders with disability?

How can curators of oral and manuscript archives share authority with narrators as a way of informing a broader understanding of the ethics of care associated with archival practices?

How can feminist approaches to archives take account of Indigenous peoples mistrust of state and institutional archives, including demands for destruction of records?

These are some of the questions to be discussed.

Alecia Simmonds (UTS: Law), ‘Professional Ethics: Preliminary Reflections upon our Obligations to the Dead’

Linda Steele (UTS: Law), ‘Archive as Institutional Injustice: Violence Against Women Offenders with Disability’

Nikki Henningham (Australian Women’s Archives Project), ‘Co-curating oral archives: Working with Women to Publish Australian Women Lawyers as Active Citizens’

Trish Luker (UTS: Law), ‘Decolonising Archives: Indigenous Challenges to Record Keeping in ‘Reconciling’ Settler Colonial States’

The discussions will be followed by drinks sponsored by Australian Feminist Studies.

Chair: Maryanne Dever

Date: Thursday, 1 June 2017
Time: 3:00pm – 5:00pm refreshments provided
Venue: UTS Building 10, Level 14, Room 201, 235 Jones Street,Ultimo, Sydney (view map)