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Increasing interest in indigenization, decolonization, community archives, and the recent adoption of the Protocols for Native American Archival Materials (PNAAM) by the Society of American Archivists, offer opportunities for archivists to reflect on the application of “reciprocity” in archives. This article examines reciprocity as a concept in the archival field and shows how current reciprocal practices in archives with Native and Indigenous holdings can inform the wider field and its practice. The authors chart the emergence of reciprocity as an archival responsibility and to create fieldwide change through meaningful, community-based partnerships. They posit a continuum of institutional reciprocity, as well as how reciprocity might be seeded into the core functions of archives to bridge distances between communities and archival institutions. Inspired by recent scholarship in museum studies, the article concludes with a vision of “otherwising” to explore alternative possibilities that can be realized when we adopt reciprocity as an archival practice.

This paper discusses the potential role of the Council for the Preservation of Anthropological Records (CoPAR) in the context of contemporary developments in anthropological research and archival practice. Despite many efforts, there are no discipline-wide, agreed-upon best practices for making or keeping anthropological records, and no central space where such conversations are taking place. Founded in the 1990s, CoPAR aims to convey the value of anthropological records, to encourage anthropology practitioners and institutions to preserve the field's records, to identify and locate primary anthropological materials, and to promote the use of records in the discipline. While CoPAR led efforts to preserve records of anthropologists in the 1990s, it became inactive by the early 2000s. Since then, the shift to digital field records and the increased digital access of archival records has exposed new concerns for the field's archival records. This article explores the outcomes of a 2015 meeting on this topic and identifies new gaps and challenges for anthropological records, joining this work with current archival perspectives. The article makes a case for a revitalized CoPAR that will encourage life-cycle data thinking and more community-driven approaches to archival stewardship.

It is not uncommon for archival photographs to appear in multiple copies, versions, or formats. Photographs of the same provenance are often found in various locations or housed in several institutions. Format diversity, duplication, and dispersion pose profound challenges for archivists attempting to represent photographic images scattered across many institutions. This article identifies four dimensions of archival dispersion—geographical, temporal, provenancial, and material—that simultaneously act as barriers for providing consolidated representation of dispersed photographs. Understanding the context and nature of dispersion is key to effective representation of photographs in archival custody. "Archival Diaspora" explores the complicated nature of distributed collections.