03/11/2024
By Judith Aquino
“When Archives Meet Authoritarianism”
Trudy H. Peterson
Wednesday, April 3
11 a.m. to 12:15 p.m.
Coburn 255
About the talk:
Understanding how a controlling regime keeps records of its actions is usually possible only after the ruling elite collapses and some level of public access to its archives is gained. Looking at records of recent repressive regimes, this talk will explore what we know about the records practices of authoritarian governments as they affect the production of documentation; the creation of political climates that lead to self-censorship and, therefore, the lack of records creation; records destruction; and the tightly controlled access to archives of authoritarian governments.
About the speaker:
Trudy Huskamp Peterson is an archival consultant and certified archivist. She holds a Ph.D. in history from the University of Iowa. She spent 24 years with the U.S. National Archives, including more than two years as Acting Archivist of the United States. After retiring from the U.S. government, she was the founding Executive Director of the Open Society Archives in Budapest, Hungary, and then the director of Archives and Records Management for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. She is a past president of the International Conference of the Round Table on Archives (1993-1995) and the Society of American Archivists (1990-1991) and is currently the chair of the International Council on Archives’ Human Rights Working Group and chaired the ICA working group on a standard for access to archives. She consulted with the truth commissions in South Africa and Honduras, the Special Court for Sierra Leone, the Nuclear Claims Tribunal of the Republic of the Marshall Islands and worked for over three years with the police archives in Guatemala, training the staff in archival processes. Among her many publications are Final Acts: A Guide to Preserving the Records of Truth Commissions, a study of the records of twenty truth commissions, Temporary Courts, Permanent Records, a study of the records of five temporary international criminal courts, and “Securing Police Archives,” containing advice on managing records of police forces from former repressive regimes.
All are welcome!