2026
Conférence virtuelle du RCDR : Collaborations créatives, élan collectif
Virtuelle
12 au 14 mai 2026
Welcome and Keynote Session - On Haunting and the Living Archive: How MOBA is Redefining Gaps through Storytelling
Mardi 12 mai 2026
De 11h30 à 12h30
One of the longstanding challenges in Canada regarding Black archival collections is the lack of adequate metadata, especially itemized information on Black subjects. From its inception in 2023, Mapping Our Black Archives (MOBA) has aimed to change this by focusing on storytelling as a way to fill in metadata gaps. This talk will explain why the concepts of haunting and living archive are important to this work. In Ghostly Matters (1997), Avery Gordon uses the term “haunting” to examine how modern forms of dispossession, exploitation and repression concretely impact the lives of the people most affected by them and impact our shared conditions of living. Haunting is not the same as being exploited, traumatized, or oppressed; instead, haunting refers to what is living and breathing in the place hidden from view. This talk will explain how MOBA has embraced haunting and the living archive to reimagine what has been lost, destroyed, rendered invisible and what can be remade, rediscovered and redeveloped– people, places, histories, memories, ways of life, and ideas.
Conférenciers
Founder and Director
Mapping Ontario’s Black Archives (MOBA)