How do archives and other cultural institutions such as museums determine the boundaries of a particular community, and of their own institutional reach, in constructing effective strategies and methodologies for selecting and maintaining appropriate material evidence? This book offers guidance to which archivists, record managers and museums professionals can turn to when faced with such issues in their daily work. This edited collection explores the relationships between communities and the records they create at a practical and scholarly level. It focuses on the ways in which records...

Defines and models the concept of a cultural archives focusing on how diverse communities express and record their heritage and collective memory and why and how these often-intangible expressions are archival records. Analysis of oral traditions, memory texts and performance arts demonstrate their relevance as records of their communities.