Making the invisible visible: women and manuscripts in the access, preservation and interpretation of local identity information

Purpose This paper examines women’s active engagement with manuscripts as a lens to understand access, preservation, and the interpretation of local identity information. Treating manuscripts as living documentary heritage, the study foregrounds women’s often-invisible agency in sustaining cultural continuity and collective memory within royal and sultanate contexts in Sumatra. The study differentiates historical manuscript production (17th–20th centuries) from contemporary interventions (2010–present), emphasizing women’s role in the latter. This paper examines women’s engagement with manuscripts as a critical lens for understanding access, preservation, and the interpretation of local identity information. Treating manuscripts as living documentary heritage, the study foregrounds women’s often-invisible roles in shaping collective memory and cultural continuity within royal and sultanate contexts in Sumatra. While the manuscripts originate from historical court traditions, the study focuses specifically on contemporary women’s interventions in manuscript access, preservation, and interpretation in the present institutional context. Design/methodology/approach This study employs a descriptive qualitative approach, drawing on in-depth interviews, manuscript analysis, and direct observation in two hereditary royal institutional repositories: the Kingdom of Gunung Sahilan (Kampar Kiri, Riau) and the Sultanate of Mahmud Badaruddin (Palembang). Data were thematically analyzed using ATLAS.ti to examine women’s intervention-driven practices in accessing, preserving, and interpreting manuscripts. Findings The findings show that women function as central documentary agents, sustaining manuscript heritage through intergenerational knowledge transmission, domestic and court-based care, and active engagement in digitization and documentation initiatives. Their access and interpretive authority are shaped by structural, socio-cultural, and technological constraints, yet they actively mediate the circulation and meaning of manuscripts, linking inherited texts to contemporary social realities and framing manuscripts as dynamic, socially embedded documentary heritage rather than static artifacts. Research limitations/implications This study is limited to two royal and sultanate contexts in Sumatra and relies on qualitative methods that foreground depth over breadth. Future research could extend this analysis through comparative studies across regions or by examining how women’s documentary practices evolve within fully digital manuscript environments. Practical implications This study highlights the need for gender-sensitive documentation and preservation policies that recognize women as active documentary agents. Practical efforts should include equitable access to manuscripts and digital technologies, targeted capacity-building, and support for culturally grounded documentation practices led by women. Social implications Socially, the study challenges object-centered views of manuscript heritage by foregrounding women’s roles in sustaining collective memory and local identity. It promotes more inclusive understandings of access and preservation as socially and gendered documentation processes within living heritage contexts. Originality/value This paper contributes to documentation theory by demonstrating that manuscript heritage is maintained through relational, practice-based interventions rather than authorship or institutional custody alone. By positioning women as intervention-driven documentary agents, the study reframes manuscripts as living knowledge shaped through everyday practices of care, mediation, and interpretation, challenging traditional object-centered preservation models and offering a transferable framework for gendered archival research globally.