Morning all,
Wondering if anyone has tackled the challenge of how to acknowledge offensive words or phrases that appear in your collection?
I was reading an ASA A&M article from some years ago by Sue Rosly, and here's a draft of one I developed based on one she'd found written by Ros Fraser:
'Some of the terms used by the original authors in record titles and in the records themselves may be offensive. They are retained because in themselves they give information about the attitudes of the time and the context in which the records were created.'
Thoughts?
thanks,
David Bloomfield
Tasmanian Archives
Comments
Absolutely Rosalind,
we can't cover every eventuality, we can only be as thorough and thoughtful as we reasonably can in how we present our collections.
I understand that you can't always choose what you need to make available to the public! The wording means a lot and helps people to place the archives in their appropriate context in history.
Thanks for that Ros,
yes, with a similar but somewhat different issue, we're already including in our descriptions the following: 'Tasmanian Archives does not endorse any inappropriate or derogatory use.'
Hi David,
Reading through your draft above I feel that it is very well worded, and that your statement about context is an important inclusion. With school records, which can be very sensitive, the use of similar disclaimers in online environments has been valuable. It can be good to add that items are published in good faith without any intention to cause offense or harm - although I also choose what is published quite carefully.
Regards,
Ros
Thanks so much Frank,
really appreciate your feedback
cheers, David
Sometimes, we have reproduced the original language from our historical sources (such as newspaper articles, or archival records). Please be aware that such sources sometimes use language to describe people in derogatory and offensive ways that are totally unacceptable today. We use such terms in order to demonstrate the language (and thus, the thinking) of the time. We apologise for any offence or distress reading such language might cause.
On this website, we have striven to use inclusive, restorative and non-derogatory language. We know there is no single term that is able to describe the wide and varied experiences – positive and negative – of people who have been in ‘care’ as children, whether as ‘Forgotten Australians’, child migrants, members of the Stolen Generations, adoptees, wards of state, or non-wards.
In most cases, we have fallen back on the terms ‘Care Leavers’, or ‘people who were in “care” as children’. Where we are describing experiences specific to a particular group, we use more specific terms, such as ‘Former Child Migrants’, ‘Forgotten Australians’, ‘members of the Stolen Generations’.
We often use the term ‘care’ in inverted commas, to indicate that many people feel that ‘care’ is not a word to describe their childhood experiences in a Home or other institution. Similarly, when referring to institutions we use Home with a capital H to distinguish it from the usual family home. Our use of the terms ‘institutional care’ or ‘out of home care’ could encompass orphanages, children’s Homes, family group Homes, foster care or kinship care.
We know that many of the commonly used words have shortcomings and we hope that no one feels excluded, misrepresented or offended. We do apologise if this is the case.