Preserving Kenya's Past in the Digital Age: A History of Archives and Public Memory

Abstract

This study examined how the historical development of Kenya's archives, from colonial record-keeping to the present digital archive, has shaped what the public can know about the past and what will be available to future historians, and whether digitisation addresses the resulting gaps. It employed a qualitative documentary analysis of institutional records from the Kenya National Archives and Documentation Service (KNADS), legislation, archival catalogue descriptions, press reports, and published scholarship. It identifies three related ruptures in Kenya's documentary record: the deliberate destruction and removal of colonial records at independence, known as Operation Legacy; the gap between the scope of KNADS's mandate and its resources and more recently, a mismatch between the pace at which government business has moved onto digital platforms and the development of systems to preserve born-digital records. Additionally, more recently, a mismatch between the pace at which government business has moved onto digital platforms and the development of systems to preserve born-digital records. The study concludes that digitisation is not the same as preservation: it has widened access to some materials while leaving older inequalities in place and leaving born-digital records exposed. The study recommends that, for public memory, who can consult the record, and whether today's government records survive to be consulted, depend on decisions about preservation and not only on the digitisation of services. The study contributes an integrated account of colonial archival loss, institutional capacity, digitisation and unequal access, and draws policy implications for digital preservation and public memory in Kenya.