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My dissertation project examines memory work on incarceration through the lens of critical archival studies and abolition feminism. Despite the prevalence of the prison industrial complex in U.S. society, the perspectives of incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people struggle to be heard in media, advocacy, cultural, and academic spaces. However, more archives are turning their attention to collecting oral histories, artwork, writings, and other materials from those with lived experiences of imprisonment. I study the significance of this memory work through ethnographic research at three archives: After Violence Project, Rikers Public Memory Project, and Brown University’s John Hay Library. Through in-depth interviews with archives staff and formerly incarcerated contributors, observation of events at the sites, and study of their collections, I identify the significance of memory work at four levels: personal, practical, political, and epistemological. On the personal level, formerly incarcerated archives contributors describe the healing power of reclaiming one’s story in the wake of symbolic annihilation. The practical significance of memory work on incarceration is in fostering an archival praxis that prefigures a society centered on care and accountability instead of punishment. Describing the political applications of this memory work, Rikers Public Memory Project provides a case study for how archives can advance narrative change. And study of the Mumia Abu-Jamal papers demonstrates how memory work on incarceration challenges dominant epistemologies. Seen through the lens of abolition feminism, these levels of significance represent interconnected areas of struggle in ending carceral capitalism. This is the abolitionist archival imaginary: the use of archives to imagine and enact a post-carceral future. At a moment when archival praxis is threatened by state repression, the rise of AI technologies, and the expansion of digital surveillance, I assert the urgency of abolitionist archival imaginaries for reorienting memory work toward liberation.
\n\"Abolitionist Archival Imaginaries: The World Building Praxis of Memory Work on Incarceration,\" (PhD, UCLA, 2026). https://escholarship.org/uc/item/1jg380vx
\nClick here to download a zine I created about my dissertation research.
\nResearch on the stewardship of incarceration-related materials at academic archives. In recent years, universities have increasingly devoted resources to documenting the impact of mass incarceration in the U.S. My research focuses on this emerging collecting area through interviews with archivists at repositories that have undertaken this work. The findings of this research focus on the particular ethical difficulties of archiving materials related to incarceration, which are often made more complex by the carceral entanglements of the universities in which this work occurs. I argue for a liberatory approach to archiving incarceration materials, with a focus on how this work can help get people free.
\n\"Abolition Feminist Provenance,\" Journal of Critical Library and Information Studies, forthcoming
\n\"Caring for Archives of Incarceration: The Ethics of Carceral Collecting at University Archives,\" Archivaria 97 (May 2024), 26-80. https://archivaria.ca/index.php/archivaria/article/view/13957
\nA four-year participatory action research project led by After Violence Project (AVP) and the South Asian American Digital Archive (SAADA) in collaboration with the UCLA Community Archives Lab. Through funding from the Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS), the project sponsored archival fellows at AVP and SAADA as they used digital technologies to collect oral histories and other records from their community. As part of a research team at UCLA, I worked with the fellows and the interviewees to develop tools that center the experiences and needs of contributors to community-based archives like AVP and SAADA. Along with the project PI from UCLA, Dr. Michelle Caswell, I co-authored four peer reviewed publications on the affective impact of using digital technologies like Zoom to create and collect archival records. We also collaborated with AVP and SAADA to create an online toolkit for starting a peer-to-peer oral history project.
\nMichelle Caswell, Anna Robinson-Sweet & Sadaf Maleki, “Sometimes A Kitchen, Sometimes a Zoom Call”: Experiences of Recording Oral Histories Online,” The Public Historian 48, no. 1 (2026): 22-50, https://doi.org/10.1525/tph.2026.48.1.22
\nAnna Robinson-Sweet & Michelle Caswell, “Paying it Forward: The Prefigurative Politics of Record Creation.” KULA: Knowledge Creation, Dissemination, and Preservation Studies 8, no. 1 (2025), https://kula.uvic.ca/index.php/kula/article/view/292/513.
\nMichelle Caswell and Anna Robinson-Sweet, \"'We Bounce off Each Other's Vibe': The Importance of Symmetrical Intersubjectivity Between Interviewer and Narrator,\" The Oral History Review 51 (2024), 179-202. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00940798.2024.2316904
\nMichelle Caswell and Anna Robinson-Sweet, \"'It Was as Much for Me as For Anybody Else': The Creation of Self-Validating Records,\" The Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies 10 (2023). https://elischolar.library.yale.edu/jcas/vol10/iss1/10/
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