Web archives and digital heritage borders

In 2003, UNESCO formally acknowledged born-digital heritage, setting a milestone for its preservation at an international scale. However, the landscape of born-digital archiving is fragmented, involving diverse practices, perimeters, collections, and stakeholders (Schafer et al., 2016) operating at several levels from an international one with Internet Archive to more targeted initiatives by researchers and the civil society, through national GLAMs. These entities, as well as researchers, increasingly grapple with the complexities of transnational circulation and studies and face significant challenges, for example analyzing the digital traces of the COVID crisis (Aasman et al., 2022). Institutional web archives often adhere to national borders. They are constrained by copyright laws and access restrictions, and collections may also face interoperability issues. This talk will therefore primarily explore the boundaries of web archives, whether related to access (such as in the archiving of social platforms), digital enclosures, legal frameworks, or the governance that shapes organizational structures. The intricate digital rights management, national jurisdictional limitations, and the technical barriers of archiving platforms reveal part of the multifaceted challenges in preserving born-digital heritage across borders. The second part of the presentation will delve deeper into some invisible barriers, addressing the dynamics of inclusion and exclusion within digital archiving. Highlighting initiatives like DocNow during the Ferguson unrest and the subsequent Black Lives Matter movement, or SUCHO for preserving Ukrainian cultural heritage online in times of war, this part considers ‘live archives’, underscoring the ongoing negotiations of borders and practices in times of crisis. Through these examples, we aim to shed light on efforts led by institutions, universities, or civil society to navigate and transcend the boundaries that define the archival landscape, promoting a more inclusive and comprehensive approach to digital heritage preservation, not without creating debates, needs for adaptation, and sometimes controversies.