Co-creating inclusive archives: DE-BIAS takeaways on community collaboration

The DE-BIAS project aims to promote a more inclusive and respectful approach to the description of digital collections and the telling of stories and histories of minoritised communities. As part of the project’s work, in November 2023 and January 2024, the Netherlands Institute for Sound & Vision (NISV) organised three co-creation sessions in which 10 participants from the Dutch-Surinamese community reviewed NISV archival descriptions to uncover and correct biased language. Here, we share our key takeaways and learnings on community collaboration.

1. Community allies are vital

Firstly, we learnt that having a trusted ‘community ally’ is central to all community collaboration. Our community ally Sharma Soerjoesing-Chin A Foeng facilitated the co-creation sessions, and as a community member herself mediated between the community and the archive. Sharma is from Suriname and has worked as a presenter and producer at the Dutch broadcaster Omroep West since 2003.

Sharma’s connection with the community and professional expertise was instrumental in forming the group, selecting the material and guiding our approach. She helped narrow down the vast amount of available material to a selection of 20 clips, including historical news, satirical programmes, advertisements, children’s shows and travel documentaries related to Suriname. Her involvement ensured a warm and safe space for discussions and critical reflection, in which the group could take the lead.

2. Diversify and compensate the group

Secondly, diversity among participants was essential. Our participants varied in age and were from different Surinamese cultural backgrounds such as Chinese, Hindustani, Creole and Javanese Surinamese, with different migration experiences. Some were born in the Netherlands while others migrated when they were young, or had only recently arrived. This variety of cultural positionalities ensured a diversity of perspectives, enriching the discussions.

Furthermore, it was important to pay participants, in acknowledgement of the expertise community members bring. Sharma specifically invited individuals whose work or daily lives involve raising awareness of Surinamese culture in the Netherlands. As such, the participants possessed expert knowledge of Surinamese culture and history which was invaluable to the sessions. 

3. Emotions first

Next, leaving room for emotions proved vital. In describing material, archival institutions such as NISV try to be as neutral as possible, while accepting that neither the material nor the description can ever be completely neutral. Since images evoke many emotions, according to Sharma, discussing emotion and recognition was the most natural starting point. After watching a clip, Sharma would first write all the emotions that occurred to the group on a flipchart, before collecting factual information from them to formulate a description.

In taking this approach and welcoming emotion, the archive was made personal and almost familial. As Sharma recounts, the sessions, ‘Felt a bit like we were at a traditional Surinamese party at times, watching a movie with grandma and grandpa, the aunties and the cousins, and everyone sharing their stories!’

4. Challenging our own assumptions

Another significant lesson was to let go of assumptions. My colleagues and I expected strong negative reactions to certain excerpts, such as a 1987 commercial for Duo Penotti chocolate spread. In this famous Dutch advert, skin colour is used to represent both the white and dark chocolate in the spread; a white boy and a Black boy are shown together in one huge pair of white and black trousers, lip-syncing the words of its iconic jingle. Contrary to our expectations, participants expressed pride in seeing a Black child in a major commercial, sharing stories of community excitement when it first aired.

Even when shown satirical programmes with offensive language which played on negative stereotypes about black people, participants offered nuanced, context-aware responses. The group regarded these programmes as early steps in a cultural dialogue rather than purely negative portrayals. As Sharma puts it, '[offensive terms] need not be as hurtful as we might initially think, as long as it is explained why it was used back then.'

5. Openness to change direction

During the sessions, we learned that participants had a different focus, offering new insights on the material. Participants uncovered more than biased terms, namely one-sided descriptions and a lack of culturally significant search terms. As Sharma elaborates, ‘There was mainly a bit of knowledge missing in the descriptions we came across. The material was described in a very ‘flat’ manner, with the absence of certain central elements or terms.’

In letting the community take the lead it became clear that the participants felt the lack of knowledge and the one-sidedness of existing descriptions to be more problematic than the presence of offensive language. By maintaining an openness to changes in the direction of the sessions, the focus of the sessions shifted from DE-BIAS’s aim of addressing offensive terms to the discovery of the communities own aim for the sessions: namely, addressing gaps and silences.

6. Anticipate the implementation of changes

Lastly, it’s important to anticipate how the changes suggested by participants will be implemented. It is often very complicated to implement changes or additions in the archival systems of cultural heritage institutions. These sessions opened up discussions on how to accommodate community descriptions in our archival database, yet this was far from straightforward. In future we will make sure to involve IT as early as possible, to ensure that the technical possibilities are clear from the start. This helps to manage the expectations of participants and to adopt the collected input more swiftly.

Explore DE-BIAS

The DE-BIAS co-creation sessions have shown how important community collaboration is in making archives more accessible and inclusive. The NISV team is now working on updating the institutional collection policy. This progress is possible thanks to the experiences and insights gained from working in collaboration with the Surinamese community.

As the DE-BIAS project moves into its final phase, we are organising evaluation events to test the DE-BIAS tool. The goal is to identify any issues and develop a tool that can help cultural heritage institutions address bias in their collection metadata. If you would like to find out more about getting involved, please reach out to project.debias@gmail.com.

Learn more about the DE-BIAS project and its resources on the project page. Stay tuned for future events and updates!