ALES Lunchtime Seminar: "Divergent Minds in the Archive - Neurodivergent Professionals and Accessibility"
Speakers: Dr Ria Cheyne, Dr Ann-Marie Foster and Dr Philip Milnes-Smith
Our speakers for this session are Dr Ria Cheyne and Dr Ann-Marie Foster. Their talk is entitled: “Divergent Minds in the Archive – Neurodivergent Professionals and Accessibility”.
What are the barriers our neurodivergent colleagues experience, and how can we make our workplace cultures more inclusive? For neurodivergent archive and collections professionals, workplaces are at once a site of joy and frustration. The effects of climate-controlled storage spaces, the potential overwhelm that comes from handling documents, and punitive standardised ways of communicating create exclusionary spaces. Fears around the impact of finding networking difficult, if not impossible, mean that people worry about career progression. For others, ‘masking’ at work to protect themselves in a people-focused industry means that archive professionals are in a constant state of exhaustion. Conversely, for some, their ‘special interest’ in history and strong sense of non-hierarchical justice forms a strong sense of professional practice which is inclusive, anti-ableist, and emphasises the importance of a welcoming archive for all.
This discussion is based on workshop data collected as part of the 2025 EDI Caucus-funded ‘Divergent Minds in the Archive’ project, which asked neurodivergent professionals about the barriers, good practice, and opportunities for change that they faced in their workplaces. A clear call from workshop participants was for a higher level of understanding about what neurodivergence is, and how it might create barriers and opportunities, shared with neurotypical managers and colleagues. This session goes some way to redressing this, by suggesting pathways to more equitable workspaces.
Dr Cheyne and Dr Foster will be joined in the Q&A by Dr Philip Milnes-Smith, Chair of the Archives and Records Association Allies, and who was on the Advisory Board for the ‘Divergent Minds’ project.