Centering the Care of Refugees and their Service Workers through Archival Community Informatics

Frederick, Merrion

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/132992 Copy

Description

Title

Centering the Care of Refugees and their Service Workers through Archival Community Informatics

Author(s)

Frederick, Merrion

Issue Date

2026-03-12

Keyword(s)

• Community archiving
• Participatory methodologies
• Community informatics
• Digital humanities
• Information inequity

Abstract

Introduction. This study extends the conversation of information impoverishment and marginalization to the community of refugees and their service workers in the United States and, in doing so, introduces the Our Refugee Stories Archive (ORSA) as a resource created to alleviate said marginalization as well as house stories of the refugee experience. Method. The current participatory user-centered archival workflow of ORSA is mapped onto the Archival Community Informatics (ACI) framework to assess their alignment with the framework functions, which are intended to center and address community needs at every stage of the archival design process. Analysis. Existing and planned initiatives of the ORSA design team are analyzed in terms of their relationality and alignment with non-traditional conceptualizations of Western colonial archival practices, including impact, intergenerational knowledge transfer, continuum, context, justice, and intangibility. Findings and Discussion. The two root concepts and six secondary functions of the ACI framework are met in the ORSA workflow. Conclusion(s). The study findings yield implications for the second phase of focus groups user-testing ORSA’s usefulness and useability as an information resource

Publisher

iSchools

Series/Report Name or Number

iConference 2026 Proceedings

Type of Resource

Other

Genre of Resource

Conference Poster

Language

eng

Permalink

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/132992

Copyright and License Information

Copyright 2026 is held by Merrion Frederick. Copyright permissions, when appropriate, must be obtained directly from the authors.

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