“It Could Have Been Us in a Different Moment. It Still Is Us in Many Ways”: Community Identification and the Violence of Archival Representation of Disability

Abstract

Using data collected through semi-structured interviews, this paper outlines two ways disabled people relate to their representation in archives. First, many participants reflected on the prevalence of disability stereotypes, tropes and limited perspectives within the records that document us. Witnessing these representations—or rather, misrepresentations—and their violent effects is emotionally difficult for many disabled people researching our histories. Second, many interviewees saw themselves in archival subjects and related to the threat of institutionalization they faced. Yet, as they see pieces of themselves in other times, disabilities and geographies, disabled researchers are also aware of the activation of present politics, vocabularies, and critical lenses that they apply when addressing the historical record. As part of a larger research project that investigates the impacts of archival representation, these findings lay the foundation for the multifaceted ways in which disabled communities are affected by witnessing themselves in history through digital and physical archives.