AMIA Spring 2021

In Mexico, a historical tradition of experiences appealing to “the community” exists, in both indigenous peoples and in mestizo groups, as a political experience against the official discourse of the nation and outside networks of governmental support. This panel proposes a discussion on the conceptual differences of “the community” in Mexican audiovisual archiving projects and practices. Through case studies of three recent and ongoing projects, this panel will reflect on community video archive experiences as local strategies that serve not only as accounts of the past, but as contemporary dialogues about national heritage that create visualizations of how ideas of community are understood. It will investigate the coincidence of definitions around “the community,” highlighting: maneuvers of discovery and concealment of notions about heritage, imaginary and real territorial boundaries, and zones of identity where tenets of classical archival science can both operate successfully and fail abysmally. This panel will discuss its topic with a broad spectrum of perspectives--from a deputy director of a national collecting institution volunteering her time, to a for-profit video producer operating a community center, to an illegal immigrant building digitization capacities. The case studies are unique and will not be duplicated in other panels. This panel will involve some translation for non-Spanish speakers. Participants are intermediate-to-advanced in their public speaking skill levels and experience.