Disability Representation in the Music Archive

Elizabeth A. Pineo

University of Maryland

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BACKGROUND

According to the CDC, 1 in 4 people is disabled, making disabled people the largest minority group in the world [1]. Yet diversity discussions often overlook disability topics, issues, and challenges. This survey of 105 archives aims to bring light to the realities of disability representation in music archives with the hope of inspiring the same terminology revisions we’ve seen applied to other minority groups.

METHODS

I conducted an online survey of 105 archives between February and March 2022 to determine types of disability representation using the following terms:
1. Disability
2. Disabled
3. Handicapped*
4. Autism
5. Deaf
6. Retard(ed)*
While conducting the survey, I limited my search behaviors to those typical of an untrained archive user to determine the baseline accessibility of disability-related records. For example, I refrained from using ”advanced search” or other complex search techniques.
To reduce the influence of my own biases in this work, I endeavored to make sure that my categories were as close to objective as they could be.

[1] Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "CDC: 1 in 4 US adults live with a disability." CDC Newsroom Releases. https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2018/p0816-disability.html

* I used outdated terminology in my search terms because archival records often are not

updated regularly. Using outdated terms increases the potential reach of searches.

Representation Types (General)

Explanation of Categories

“No mention” indicates a repository that has no records pertaining to disability. “Person-first” and “identity-first” refer to the type of language used to describe a disabled person. ”Outdated” refers to language employed that is not preferred by the disability community, including handicapped, retard(ed), slow, etc. ”Noun” indicates that the archival description employs phrases like the disabled, the blind, or the handicapped. ”Avoidant Language/Phrasing” refers to a description written to avoid referring to a disabled person or that in some way lacks necessary context (as used in the Autism Spectrum Disorder [ASD] & Deaf categories). “Records inaccessible” means the archive’s records were unavailable to the public. “Romanticized” refers to description that idealizes disability. “Care” indicates that the description prioritizes the role of the caregiver over the disabled person. “Sexualized” represents description that focuses on the sexual aspects of disability when it is not relevant to the record being described. “Unprocessed” refers to records inaccessible due to lack of processing. “Other” denotes records that do not fall into the provided categories.

Sum of Categories

While 105 archives were surveyed, the observer will notice that the sum of all categories presented is higher than that. This is because a single archive may contain multiple types of representation. For example, an archive might have two records, one for which the description uses person-first language and one for which the description employs the noun form. In this case, the archive would be counted in both the person-first language and noun categories.

Significance

Language is messy, complicated, and powerful. The words used to describe marginalized groups are often used not to uplift, but to diminish. In the world of archives, the language we choose to use to describe marginalized groups is evermore important. Archives are, after all, the physical embodiments of not only our society's past--but also our present. They define our memories, and, in doing so, they define the knowledge we will have access to in our future.

Western music is often critiqued for its whiteness, its male-dominance, and its general lack of representation. These are critiques that are more than valid. Yet at the same time, we must remember that the Western music canon is often more diverse and representative than we give it credit for. Ludwig van Beethoven, for instance, was deaf. Most anyone who knows Beethoven's name knows this, yet we do not celebrate him for allowing members of the Deaf community to see themselves represented in the Western canon. Instead, we romanticize the great "tragedy" that befell him and call him a tortured composer. Why should this be the narrative we enact around disability in Western music?

This survey of music archives' representations of disability is but a starting point; we cannot improve our language choices until we know what they currently are. With these findings, it is my sincere hope that we will be prompted move with vigor toward a more inclusive, justice-filled future, not just in the music archive, but in society writ large--for our archives are but a reflection of our society.

Music Only

Music archives take many forms, the most traditional of which is an archive of Western Classical music materials. For this survey, I chose to include sound archives, which hold not just music recordings but also spoken word, commercial, or other types of sound too. At times, a music archive was technically a collection within a more general archive but was large enough to warrant inclusion anyway. For example, The Moldenhauer Archives are part of the Library of Congress, which holds materials not limited to music.

Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH)

Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) are like hashtags on social media--but for every item under the sun! Much like a hashtag, they allow someone searching an archive to click on them, then quickly find more materials pertaining to the same subject. They're created by the Library of Congress, and cataloguers or other information professionals can submit suggestions for new subject headings or changes to existing ones. Submissions for new subject headings or changes to them are evaluated on "literary warrant," which means that the submitter has to be able to prove that literature uses the suggested term. The problem with that is that literature largely reflects a society's dominant voices as opposed to its marginalized voices. Like many spaces, marginalized voices in literature are the exception--not the norm. As a result, LCSH follow the dominant tendency to use person-first language. So, when a surveyed archive used LCSH (as most archives do), it necessarily got counted in the person-first language category.

Explanation of Subset Analysis

Because the autistic and Deaf communities have made clear the type of language they prefer to have used to describe them (that is, identity-first language), I was interested to see whether archival descriptions honored those preferences. Unfortunately, like general disability, "no mention" continues to be the most prevalent category, followed by "outdated"--and the "IFL" category doesn't have any records in it.

This is saddening, and it is indicative of the lack of awareness, understanding, and acceptance of disability terminology in mainstream society.

Explanation of Unique Categories

"Lacks Context" indicates that a record uses an outdated and/or offensive term that is not contextualized, leading the user to view it as acceptable. "Positive" indicates a description that is not problematic. "Paternalistic" refers to a description that demonstrates a protective/authoritarian view of the disabled person(s) described.

For Further Exploration

While surveying the archives, I paid attention to the difference in results in a subset of them (roughly 33%) when searching "autism" or related terms as opposed to the outdated, offensive "retard" or "retarded." Because this sample size was so small, I could not draw any definitive conclusions. That said, I can anecdotally conclude that searching "retard(ed)" tends to increase the number of results pertaining to mental disability.

Given that most people today would not use this terminology or would find it offensive, this is problematic for conducting successful, thorough archival searches.

Limitations

I surveyed only English-language archives. This was a necessity because issues of representation vary by culture and language; for example, the person-first vs identity-first language debate cannot exist in most non-English language structures. To gain a global view of disability representation in music archives (and archives in general), we must also take an approach that decenters the Western, English-speaking world.
Given the pandemic, time, and location realities surrounding this project, I was only able to survey archival material that had been digitized. There are billions of analog archival records in existence that I was simply unable to access. For a fully comprehensive approach, finding aids, descriptions, and metadata for those records also needs to be analyzed.
Finally, the very nature of a survey resulting in categories able to be graphed is a limitation. I am but one person, surveying a broad range of archival records. In a space as subjective as that of representation, my decisions about categorization are easily called into question. To enhance what potential objectivity there is in a project as inherently subjective as this one, additional reviewers of the records would be required and comparisons of our categorizations would need to be made.