In Making and Breaking: Teaching Information Ethics through Curatorial Practice, Christina Boyles speaks on her visit to Puerto Rico where she conducted interviews with citizens who agreed to share their stories about Hurricane Maria. She details how she sought people from different demographic groups which included those from a variety of geographic locations, ages, educational backgrounds and socioeconomic circumstances. She did this to try to capture the broadest range of experiences possible. From this, she makes reference to how vastly different this is to curation which is an inherently problematic process. She determines this further by stating “No matter how many interviews I conducted, I knew that I could not fully capture the trauma and pain caused by the hurricane. I also knew that the narratives my research highlighted could shape, for better or worse, public perceptions of the hurricane’s aftereffects. As Michelle Caswell observes, “memory work is a tool for political liberation”, but it is also a tool for social oppression [Caswell 2014].” – Christina Boyles (2018).

As time goes by, government entities are making information inaccessible to the public such as the Immigration and Customs Enforcement planning to destroy the records pertaining to immigrant abuse. This is considerably shifting the boundaries of what counts as public knowledge. In many ways, public memory is like an algorithm to promote biased narratives using a decision process that is not transparent to the public. Students need to be taught about the structures underpinning information systems but this can only happen when individuals ensure that the students possess information literacy skills to assess, critique and respond to societal narratives and injustices. This can happen by teaching students about the processes that go into developing archives, databases and information resources.

As knowledge relies on digital archives, scholars need to understand the troubled and troubling roots of archives if they are to understand the instrumental, historical and cultural significance. Therefore it is crucial to develop approaches to archiving and meaning-making that are grounded in social justice. Two methodologies that do such are “Making and breaking”. These methodologies build upon two key digital humanities practises and teach students to interrogate the “archives of humanity” in socially conscious ways. When students practice the skills of curation, collection and publication, they have the opportunity to critique and intervene in information systems through their own processes of collection development. This also highlights the types of choices that archivists and information systems make every day. “As Moya Bailey aptly observes, “marginalized groups have often used media production to challenge dominant scripts within mainstream outlets, and the rise of digital platforms makes this task even easier” [Bailey 2015]. She goes on to describe the incredible work of black trans women on Twitter who participate in a “curation process that also works to enrich the lives of those participating” in order to make their community, as well as members of the public, more knowledgeable about the lived experiences of trans individuals [Bailey 2015, par. 3]. These women developed their own strategies for controlling and disseminating narratives about the black trans community.” – Christina Boyles (2018).

Through curation, students investigate topics such as race, gender, sexuality, disability and socioeconomic status through the careful selection, arrangement and presentation of materials. This will make students think more critically about the act of curation by encouraging them to participate in the making and breaking of knowledge which can be used to interrogate the “archives of humanity” and develop pedagogy grounded in cultural critique and social justice.