University of California, Los Angeles

The University of Hawaii received this grant which was transferred to the University of California, Los Angeles. Dr. Tonia Sutherland seeks to identify existing—and make recommendations for future—professional practices for culturally responsive decision making about archival redescription. Asking questions such as when and why redescription practices are engaged, what role improved access as a result of digitization plays in motivations for redescription, when and how mass digitization results in harmful description at scale, and how aggregation amplifies and legitimizes problematic description, this Early Career Research Development project will address growing concerns that have arisen at the intersection of description and digitization, identify developing redescription practices that model archival harm reduction, and make recommendations for culturally responsive redescription in U.S. archives.