The archival colour line: race, records and post-colonial custody

Abstract

Using the concept of the ‘colour line,’ by which W.E.B. Du Bois named the problematic ‘relation of the darker to the lighter races of men in Asia and Africa, in America and the islands of the sea,’ this article argues that the ongoing custody of archives displaced to Europe during decolonization constitutes an ‘archival colour line’ that both results from and recapitulates the racism of the imperial project. The article does this by first arguing that developments in post-custodialism return significance to custody, calling into question the value of ‘digital repatriation’ and ‘joint’ or ‘shared heritage.’ Establishing the importance of archival custody, the article then considers the racialized nature of archival displacements in postcolonial contexts, drawing on data from a recent international survey. To look more closely at how such an archival colour line might be constituted, the article examines the dispossession of people from Kericho, Kenya, to illuminate three stages of archival colour line formation; the colonial setting (provenance); decolonization and the reconfiguration of economic interests (appraisal); and postcolonial archives and the momentum of reckoning (custody). The article concludes that the ongoing European custody of the records in question results from and fortifies a global racist order.