As a class, and to a larger extent as a CAP stream, we’ve been studying the TRC and its effects since the beginning of the school year, when we didn’t even know how to analyze abstractions and mediate scholarly voices. Now six months of study later, it takes on a more complex and interrelated context. Many of you revisited the TRC through the Museum of Anthropology exhibit, making new connections or acknowledging concepts, constraints and ideas you were not aware of before. Chany explored how the TRC can serve as a platform for Aboriginal peoples to override their “victim” identities and instead emphasize “their bravery and perseverance through the bad hand they were dealt.” She also made a valid point about many places, like the United States, continuing to silence and deny these voices.

Upon further examination, much of what our class wrote about had to do with the relationship between an archive or a space of public memory and the archivist. Makoto shed light on the online narrative database StoryCorp, which while claiming universality, is in fact structured to favor the narratives of veterans and more traditional stories. Mana wrote about the cultural importance of historical education, in this case of how Japanese students are denied the knowledge of their nation’s recent past. Even the Olympics, which are not commonly seen as a national archive, or a preserved record of national pride and ability, were related to the silencing of queer voices by Meredith.

What is being reiterated is a heightened awareness of the ethics of representation, and recognition of problematic power dynamics that go into archived memory, events and voices. Niklas had plenty to say about that in his blot concerning last week’s lantern festival. What I also see is a flexibility in thinking of what can be considered an archive, who have the ability to be an archivist, as well as the possibility of deviation from intent.