Alice Stevenson

Information governance, records management and freedom of information: a study of local government authorities in England

In many democratic states political rhetoric gives weight to increasing public participation in and understanding of the political process; (re)-establishing public trust in government decision making; increasing transparency, openness, and accountability of public authorities; and, ultimately, improving government decision-making on behalf of citizens. Access to the public record and freedom of information (FOI) are mechanisms which help to facilitate the accountability of public authorities. Many jurisdictions have introduced legislation related to these mechanisms, and the UK government is no exception with its enactment of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) in 2000. University College London (UCL) ran a research project over 12 months in 2008–2009, funded by the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council. The research project examined what the impact of the UK FOIA had been on records management services in public authorities, especially local government. This article reports on some of the findings of the study. It considers how FOI compliance and records management functions are organized in local government and the role of information governance which is emerging as an umbrella for such functions. It draws some conclusions about the contributions that records management services make to the ability of local authorities to comply with the FOIA and identifies some ways in which user experience may be affected by the management of records.

An absolute chronology for early Egypt using radiocarbon dating and Bayesian statistical modelling

The Egyptian state was formed prior to the existence of verifiable historical records. Conventional dates for its formation are based on the relative ordering of artefacts. This approach is no longer considered sufficient for cogent historical analysis. Here, we produce an absolute chronology for Early Egypt by combining radiocarbon and archaeological evidence within a Bayesian paradigm. Our data cover the full trajectory of Egyptian state formation and indicate that the process occurred more rapidly than previously thought. We provide a timeline for the First Dynasty of Egypt of generational-scale resolution that concurs with prevailing archaeological analysis and produce a chronometric date for the foundation of Egypt that distinguishes between historical estimates.

Cultural convergence in the Neolithic of the Nile Valley: a prehistoric perspective on Egypt's place in Africa

The African origins of Egyptian civilisation lie in an important cultural horizon, the ‘primary pastoral community’, which emerged in both the Egyptian and Sudanese parts of the Nile Valley in the fifth millennium BC. A re-examination of the chronology, assisted by new AMS determinations from Neolithic sites in Middle Egypt, has charted the detailed development of these new kinds of society. The resulting picture challenges recent studies that emphasise climate change and environmental stress as drivers of cultural adaptation in north-east Africa. It also emphasises the crucial role of funerary practices and body decoration.

The Impact of Freedom of Information on Records Management and Record Use in Local Government: A Literature Review

In 2008–2009, a research project, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, was run by the Department of Information Studies at University College London (UCL). It examined the impact of the UK Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) 2000 on records management services in public authorities, especially in local government. The project considered the inter-relationship between records management and freedom of information, and examined the cooperation and partnerships needed in order to maximise the benefits of freedom of information. A part of the first phase of the research was an extensive literature review: this article introduces the literature on freedom of information and records management, focusing on the UK. It suggests that while there were significant preparations by some public authorities for the full implementation of the Act in 2005, perhaps the necessary culture change and strategic leadership did not follow. There are, as yet, few studies of the user experience of freedom of information, and this is certainly an area needing further study.

Freedom of Information and records management in local government: help or hindrance?

Research into the impact of the UK Freedom of Information (FOI) Act 2000 on records management services in public authorities, especially in local government was carried out by the Department of Information Studies at UCL in 2008- 2009, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. The project considered the inter-relationship between records management and freedom of information, and examined the co-operation and partnerships needed in order to maximise the benefits of freedom of information. The first phase of the research was an extensive literature review, focusing on freedom of information and records management in the UK. This was followed by qualitative research using semi-structured interviews to gather rich data from council officials responsible for the provision of records management, information governance and freedom of information functions, complemented by interviews with requestors, to provide an outsiders perspective. The article reports on the position of records management in local government prior to 2000s drawing on the literature, outlines the research findings on FOI and records management policy and practice in local government, and concludes by considering the perspective of requestors and users of the FOIA as engaged citizens.

Social relationships in predynastic burials

Of all Ancient Egyptian eras, it has been the Predynastic (primarily the fourth millennium BC) that has received the greatest attention from anthropologically derived models of mortuary behaviour. Following an overview of developments in mortuary archaeology, this article aims to contribute to the discussion of alternative social models of Predynastic mortuary remains. In particular, it aims to challenge the overriding assumption that burial form and content is a reflection or correlate of individual status or identity, or that it simply forms an index for social ranking. Rather, it is argued that these contexts may additionally reveal aspects of the relationships between people, objects, and places. In doing so, it is possible to consider some of the ideological aspects of Predynastic burials in addition to the social-economic aspects that are more often discussed.

Conflict antiquities and conflicted antiquities: addressing commercial sales of legally excavated artefacts

Abstract When the antiquities trade is discussed in archaeology it is often prefixed with the pejorative adjective ‘illicit’. ‘Archaeology without context’ is a rallying cry for the archaeological profession to mobilise its collective voice in order to petition against the sale of heritage where an objects history is opaque and very probably a result of destructive looting (Chippindale et al. 2001; Brodie 2006). The vocal campaign of the last decade to ensure that high-profile sales and museum acquisitions of material without documented collection histories do not encourage or sanction looting (e.g. Renfrew 2000; Brodie et al. 2006) has had some success, although objects without findspots continue to surface on the market (e.g.

‘A selection of minor antiquities’: a multi-sited view on collections from excavations in Egypt

ABSTRACT This article draws upon the ‘Artefacts of Excavation’ (2014–17) project, which is investigating the worldwide distribution of finds from British-led excavations in Egypt between 1880 and 1980. The departure point for the present article is the earliest phase of these distributions. The potential for multi-sited ethnographic approaches to illuminate the history and significance of such collections is explored. It is argued that, through such analyses, it is possible to chart shifting tensions in the status of objects as they were collected, circulated and re-evaluated between the field and the museum. The article concludes by suggesting that multi-sited frameworks may also be able to re-animate ‘orphaned’ archaeological collections, some of which could be at risk from commercial sale.

Introduction—object habits: Legacies of fieldwork and the museum

ABSTRACT This paper introduces the concept of ‘object habits’ for diversifying the scope of museum histories. The term is shorthand referring to an area’s customs relating to objects, taking into account factors that influence the types of things chosen, motivations for collecting, modes of acquisition, temporal variations in procurement, styles of engagements with artefacts or specimens, their treatment, documentation and representation, as well as attitudes to their presentation and reception. These customs emerge not only within the museum or out in the field, but significantly between the two, within the full agency of the world. The articles in this special issue explore the potential of ‘object habits’ in relation to the history of museums and collections across a selection of disciplines and a range of object types, including ancient artefacts, natural history specimens, archival documents, and photographic evidence.

Locating a sense of immortality in early Egyptian cemeteries

Despite the passing of a century, Hertz’s seminal work of 1907, Contribution à une Étude sur la Représentation Collective de la Mort, remains a source of inspiration for many modern interpretations of mortuary practices. Most such studies have taken Hertz’s schema of secondary funerary rites as their primary focus, but it is his wider frame of reference with its emphasis on the communal, affective experience of mortuary rituals that is the theoretical stance explored further here. Notably in this vein, his ideas have wider resonance today with the more recent anthropological emphasis on emotion and embodiment (Davies 2000, 97–8) and with studies seeking to link the spiritual and the material (Venbrux 2007). Such collective representations of death can provide particularly germane departure points for the inference of prehistoric notions of immortality. Instead of grappling with the thorny issue of personal belief, such representations allow the focus of analysis to be shifted to the shared, material contexts of experience and meaningmaking, which are more visible to archaeologists (Tarlow 2000; DeMarrais 2011). In pursuing this line of reasoning with reference to the early Egyptian evidence, I take a position already adopted by several other scholars (e.g. Hodder 2010; Kertzer 1988, 76; Price 2008; Rappaport 1999, 119–20) that concepts of spirituality (or in this case immortality) need not entail structured belief, but rather that in particular spaces and in particular scenarios an embodied sense of transcendental being can be created and encountered. In terms of the context of death, I take this to be commensurate with what the psychologists Lifton & Olson (1974) referred to as ‘experiential immortality’, key to which is the feeling of the reorientation of time. Yet contrary to their assertion that this experiential immortality emerges because of an individual’s innate sense of their own perpetuity, I contend, following recent suggestions in cognitive science (Hodge 2011a, 2011b) and in keeping with Hertz’s emphasis on the social, that it emerges from people’s intuitive sense of the continued existence of others. Building on these points, I suggest here that one way in which a sense of immortality can be stimulated is through the communal experience of how others are buried and how social relationships are dramatized in burial rites and settings.