Anthea Josias

Anthea Josias, PhD, is an archivist, researcher, and educator whose work explores the intersections of archives, collective memory, cultural heritage, and social justice. At UMSI she teaches information preservation, archival appraisal and collection development, assessment in cultural institutions, qualitative inquiry, and interdisciplinary problem solving. She also coordinates training for graduate student instructors and co-organizes UMSI’s South Africa Summer Master’s Internship Program.

A Fulbright Fellow, Josias earned her PhD in Information from UMSI in 2013. Her dissertation examined the role of archives in post-apartheid memory practices. 

Her career spans more than three decades in community-oriented, academic, human rights, and cultural heritage initiatives. In South Africa, she managed multimedia collections documenting the anti-apartheid struggle, at the Mayibuye Centre and Robben Island Museum, and served as a senior project officer at the Nelson Mandela Foundation’s Center of Memory and Commemoration. She later researched archival activism and sustainable digital infrastructure through appointments with the University of Cape Town's Archival Platform and the University of the Western Cape's Center for Humanities Research. Her work has included digital preservation at the University of Michigan Library and digital history initiatives at Michigan State University’s Matrix Center for Digital Humanities.

Her interests include community archives, collective memory, digital preservation, culturally responsive access protocols, and systemic biases in archival representation. Her chapter “Archives, Records, and Land Restitution in South Africa” received a Society of American Archivists’ Archival History Article Award.

Pronouns

she/her/hers

Areas of interest

Community archives, Collective memory, Digital curation, Systemic biases in archival representation and access systems