Scaling Access to State Records of Repression · Scaling Access to State Records of Repression The Role of Digitization in Guatemala’s Historic ... Using technology to ‘amplify’

Scaling Access to State Records of Repression

The Role of Digitization in Guatemala’s Historic Archive of the National Police

Tamy GuberekVelia Muralles

Hannah Alpert-Abrams (that’s me!)

Hannah Alpert-Abrams & Tamy Guberek Digitizing the AHPN!2

Tamy Guberek, Velia Muralles, and Hannah Alpert-Abrams. “‘Irreversible’: The Role of Digitization to Repurpose State Records of

Repression.” International Journal of Transitional Justice.

25 Jan 2019.

Available on Humanities Commons in English & Spanish


Thanks to:

Staff of the Archivo Histórico de la Policía Nacional (AHPN), the Association for Memory, Dignity and Hope (AMDE), and La Casa de la Cultura Profesor Julio César

de la Roca (LCC)

Alberto Fuentes, Luisa Fernanda Rivas and José Rodolfo Keefe

The LLILAS Benson Digital Initiatives team

Kentaro Toyama and Kirsten Weld


80,000,000 pages of records

23,000,000 digitized files

~7.5tb of data

Archivo Histórico de la Policía Nacional


How did digitization help move the AHPN “from a “terror archive into a

people’s archive?”1

1 Kirsten Weld, Paper Cadavers, supra n 1 at 237.


How did digitization make preservation and access to the AHPN ‘irreversible’?


Protection

Mobilization

Access


Protection means: Reducing the use of archival documents

Protection


Edgar Fernando García Case:

No physical documents.

667 certified documents were explicitly ‘granted probative value.’

Protection


Protection means: Long-term digital preservation

Protection


Digital Reduplication & Redundancy:

Swiss Federal ArchivesUniversity of Texas at Austin

Protection


Digital reduplication and redundancy can make preservation work ‘irreversible.’

Thanks, David Bliss!

Protection


Protection

Mobilization

Access


Using technology to ‘amplify’ justice work.1

1 Kentaro Toyama, Geek Heresy: Rescuing Social Change from the Cult of Technology

Mobilization


AHPN Information Access Unit (UAI)

Listen to testimonyQuery databasesReview outcomes

Provide emotional support

Mobilization


AHPN Information Access Unit (UAI)

In the UAI visitors’ book, one user wrote that coming to the AHPN was the closest she would

get to visiting her brother’s tomb.

Mobilization


Protection

Mobilization

Access


2011: Digital AHPN at UT Austin

Access


Digital AHPN at UT Austin

Challenges: Staff turnover, shifting institutional missions and changes in the distribution of resources

Access


Digital AHPN at UT Austin

Accomplishments: Solidarity

Conferences & EventsCourses & Research

Access


2014: Regionalization Initiative

Access


Regionalization Initiative

Alta Verapaz, Baja Verapaz, Huehuetenango, Escuintla, Quetzaltenango and Chimaltenango

Access



Challenges: a broader tendency to overestimate technological capacity while underestimating the

human labor, resources and knowledge required to carry out meaningful access.1

1 Association for Memory, Dignity and Hope (AMDE)

Access



Accomplishments: LCC (Quetzaltenango) representatives reported receiving an average of two or three people a day since the launch, and have at least one trained staff member available

daily to provide user support.1

1 La Casa de la Cultura, Profesor Julio César de la Roca (LCC)

Access


Conclusion

Protection

Mobilization

Access


Technology is not enough!

Conclusion

Documents

Scaling Access to State Records of Repression · Scaling Access to State Records of Repression The Role of Digitization in Guatemala’s Historic ... Using technology to ‘amplify’