Constructing archives of the Occupy movement

Soon after the establishment of Occupy Wall Street in September 2011, various groups initiated projects to collect and manage records of the movement. This article focuses on two community archives which were established by participants in Occupy Wall Street and Occupy Philadelphia, two formal archives institutions which have collected material and worked to build a relationship between the Occupy movement – the Tamiment Library & Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives in New York and the Temple University Urban Archives in Philadelphia – and the Activist Archivists group in New York who have provided advice and assistance to records creators and records collectors in the Occupy movement. The article investigates the ways in which these projects have incorporated the ethos and organizing strategies of the Occupy movement into their work, particularly by focusing on enabling wide participation in the management of records and by working to break down hierarchical relationships between professional archivists and non-professional users of archives.