Information Studies Colloquium: The Weight of Small Things: Everyday Archiving and the Making of Belonging in Chinese American Families with Jiarui Sun

Abstract:

This talk explores the everyday archiving practices of Chinese American families, with particular attention to their transnational and intergenerational dimensions. Drawing on interviews, ethnographic observations, and personal narratives, it examines how family members across different generations and geographies engage with documents, photographs, digital records, and heirlooms—not only as sources of information, but also as emotionally charged objects that carry meaning, memory, and identity. The analysis focuses on how these materials are preserved, interpreted, and at times contested across borders and generations, situating such practices within complex negotiations of belonging, displacement, and cultural continuity. Family archives are framed as sites of emotional labor and diasporic care, highlighting their affective, relational, and infrastructural dimensions. Rather than being solely about safeguarding the past, the talk positions family archiving as a practice through which diasporic futures are imagined, constructed, and sustained.

Bio:

Jiarui Sun is a Ph.D. candidate in Information Studies and a graduate student researcher at the Asia Pacific Center at UCLA. His research interests include archives and migration, personal archiving, and digital recordkeeping. His work has been published in both English- and Chinese-language journals, including Archival Science, and has received support from the Society of American Archivists, the Society of California Archivists, the Beta Phi Mu International Honor Society for Library and Information Science, and the UCLA Asian American Studies Center.