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DIGICOLJUST welcomes a delegation of Congolese archival specialists

The archivists’ and historians’ team of DIGICOLJUST is extremely pleased to host a two-week working mission of a delegation from the Institut National des Archives du Congo (INACO). For the first days of September, we have had the privilege of welcoming Mr. Jean-Bedel Iyoka, Deputy Director of the INACO, and Mr. Patrick Mushizi, a digitization specialist from the same institution. Their mission at the State Archives of Belgium is a continuation of a dialogue that began with the start of our project – first online, then in Kinshasa, and now in Brussels.

One of the key elements of our project was to contribute to the development of joint dynamics of preservation and valorization of the State Archives of Belgium’s “colonial” collections. Exchanges with Congolese colleagues are crucial to develop a relevant and appropriate working method that meets the expectations of all archives’ users, whether they are in Brussels or Kinshasa.

Throughout the mission, a busy schedule awaits the INACO’s delegation: most notably, meetings with the team of DIGICOLJUST about the past achievements, ongoing challenges and future perspectives offered by the projet, and workshops dedicated to the opportunities and limits of digitization as a tool of sharing a contested archival heritage with the whole “African Archives” cell of the State Archives. Visits and round-table discussions at the ULB’s and VUB’s “smaller” archival repositories with digital challenges different than those of the State Archives have also been organized. All have allowed to fruitfully engage with debates about the role of archival practises in more general demands for the “decolonization” of scholarship and heritage.

We are grateful to Jean-Bedel Iyoka and Patrick Mushizi for their time and input, and to State Archives’ archivist and project manager Tommy De Ganck who has been the driving force behind the scientific and logistic preparation of this mission.

Amandine Lauro
Amandine Lauro

OpenEdition suggests that you cite this post as follows:
Amandine Lauro (September 9, 2022). DIGICOLJUST welcomes a delegation of Congolese archival specialists. DIGICOLJUST. Retrieved June 7, 2026 from https://doi.org/10.58079/nmer