Closing the narrative gap: social media as a tool to reconcile institutional archival narratives with Indigenous counter-narratives

Abstract

Archives are an integral component in the formation of a nation’s historical narratives. They are both repositories and sources of a nation’s evidence of events. Institutional archives have been striving to incorporate equity and social justice for Indigenous peoples but their practice is still heavily skewed to colonists’ perspectives. In this article, the author uses critical race theory to examine the social media narratives of Australia’s institutional archives during National Reconciliation Week, coinciding with the 2020 Black Lives Matter uprising. She uses the concept of counter-narrative to demonstrate the gaps between narratives about Indigenous peoples and those by Indigenous peoples in contemporary archival narratives as portrayed in social media. She argues that to truly achieve equity and social justice for Indigenous peoples, archives must engage with Indigenous counter-narratives in their collecting and exhibiting practices and bring the institutional and Indigenous narratives closer together.