Counterarchive or Nostalgia Trip?

Reflections on the Swamp Ward & Inner Harbour History Project

Laura Murray is a professor of English and Cultural Studies at Queen’s University. Her research career has been diverse, from nineteenth-century American literature and newspaper history, to copyright policy and theory, to Indigenous and treaty history. In all her projects, thinking about the nature and politics of archives has been essential. Most recently, her Swamp Ward and Inner Harbour History Project (swampwardhistory.com), a community history undertaking that has produced podcasts, walking tours, a photography exhibit, many blog articles, and an oral history archive of 75 interviews, both draws from and contributes to the archives.