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Arch Sci (2013) 13:121131
DOI 10.1007/s10502-012-9184-3
ORIGINAL PAPER
Jeannette A. Bastian
Published online: 8 July 2012 Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2012
Abstract Using a variety of examples of non-traditional archives, the article explores the concept of cultural archives that embraces dynamic events such as commemorations, monuments, and other community-based representations. The paradigm of the postcolonial archive is considered and analyzed as a potential model for such a living cultural archive.
Keywords Culture Cultural Postcolonial Community archives Memory
Identity Celebrations
Prologue
It is a hot muggy April day in St. Thomas, United States Virgin Islands, a small island tourist destination in the Caribbean Sea. But its Carnival time and all day long crowds have lined the main street of Charlotte Amalie to watch the Adult parade go by. In the central Post Ofce Square, people are packed six deep rocking with the music as each troupe of carnival presenters, colorfully dressed and representing a medley of themes, performs its set piece for the television cameras. Rain has been threatening all day and just as the last of the troupes are coming down the street, the skies nally open and it pours. The musicians quickly cover their instruments, a sea of umbrellas shoot up, the troupes falter, unwilling to enter the Square in wet silence. Suddenly, a voice begins to sing softly and then louder rain dont stop de carnival. The singer, a local disc jockey, takes up a position in the front of the troupes and, repeating his song, leads them into the square. The crowd takes up the chant, the troupes nd the beat, the parade dances on.
J. A. Bastian (&)
Graduate School of Library and Information Science, Simmons College, 300 The Fenway, Boston, MA 02131, USAe-mail: [email protected]
The records of memory, the archives of identity: celebrations, texts and archival sensibilities
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This was the scene in St. Thomas in 1992 when it rained heavily toward the end of the Adult Carnival Parade, but it might just as well have been a scene from 1952, the year of the rst carnival, or from any of the intervening 40 years. In 1952, the heavy rain inspired the Duke of Iron, a calypsonian, to write a calypso, Rain Dont Stop de...