Michelle Caswell, assistant professor of information studies at the UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Studies (GSEIS), received the Waldo Gifford Leland Award on behalf of the Society of American Archivists for her book, “Archiving the Unspeakable: Silence, Memory, and the Photographic Record in Cambodia" (University of Wisconsin Press, 2014). Caswell is also an affiliated faculty member with UCLA's Center for Southeast Asian Studies
The book commemorates the roughly 1.7 million people who died in Cambodia from disease, starvation and execution during the Khmer Rouge reign in the late 1970s. It features the photographs captured by the Khmer Rouge at Tuol Sleng Prison in Phnom Penhto that demonstrate the brutality and torture people underwent before being sent to the Killing Fields. The photographs highlight the vital role archivists play in remembering human rights violations. Read more about the book in this UCLA Newsroom story: Archiving genocide in Cambodia.
“I’m really delighted that it was chosen, and a little bit surprised,” said Caswell. “The Society of American Archivists is a professional association that traditionally has emphasized practice. My book is meant to bridge the divide between practice and theory [because] I don’t think there is a divide there. I think that every practical action that archivists take is guided and informed by theory.”
Caswell currently serves as co-founder and board member of the South Asian American Digital Archive, which is currently working towards producing the book project “’Our Stories.” The book, Caswell said, will be geared toward South Asian American teenagers and their parents as a narrative based on materials from the digital archive explaining the century-old history of South Asians in the United States.
Read the complete announcement in Ampersand, the GSEIS news magazine.
