Thanks Flora!
It is important to note that this article would not have been possible without the support of three incredible research assistants who did the difficult work of translating and classifying (567 documents is no small feat!).
This material choice is part of a contentious strategy that navigates the regime's red lines: an issue is politicized by adopting a material form acceptable to the authorities and not overly subversive (compared to distributing leaflets, for example), thereby enabling the mobilization to survive.
The article demonstrates how the Committee politicizes this issue through its archival practices, at the same time adopting the material forms characteristic of administrative work, in this case the form.
It was pretty tough to translate from French! I analyze the archival practices of a committee established in the 1990s in Sudan to defend the rights of civil servants who were arbitrarily dismissed by the former authoritarian regime.
The English translation of my article on documenting arbitrary dismissals (meaning: purges) in Sudan is online. It analyzes some extraordinary archives I was lucky to stumble upon in 2019. shs.cairn.info/journal-crit...
