About

My work encompasses the socio-cultural and technological aspects of preservation informed by critical approaches to collections practices. This includes material culture, traditional memory keeping practices, archival & museum praxis, embedded and vernacular knowledge, and narrative agency and structure. My areas of focus are place as cultural memory, object narrative theory in collections, knowledge networks in communities of practice, and community-driven cultural heritage preservation.

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Cultural heritage institutions such as libraries, archives, and museums (LAM) are a vital part of our communities. As an archivist and as a past President of the Museum Association of Arizona I contribute to advocacy for cultural heritage institutions and support for the staff and volunteers. I am an active board member and work with an incredible team of scholars in support of Southwest Folklife Alliance. I am also member of the Az Museum Archives Working Group, working to develop a model for museum practitioners to help make collections discoverable and accessible to researchers, and an active member of the AZ Alliance for Response (AZAFR).

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Preservation often seeks to stabilize cultural heritage, while memory keeping recognizes memory as living, relational, and continually reinterpreted.

Memory keeping is primarily about meaning, identity, and lived experience. It refers to the ways individuals and communities remember, transmit, and sustain cultural knowledge over time. It can be informal, embodied, emotional, relational, and community-based.

Preservation is often associated with the intentional protection, maintenance, stabilization, and stewardship of cultural materials, records, practices, or sites.