Allan A. Martell is an assistant professor at the Department of Information and Library Science at Indiana University, Bloomington. In his work, Martell explores how societies negotiate social memories of violence, the role of information curation in shaping such memories, and possible frameworks to promote more critical, nuanced memories. His work has been published in Archivaria, the Memory Studies Journal, and the edited volume: Memory and Sociocultural Transformation in El Salvador (ed. Carlos Lara, University of El Salvador 2023). Martell is currently studying the role of affect in memory activism and analyzing the frames of remembrance in social media representations of the January 6 insurrection in the United States.
Martell received his Ph.D. in Information from the School of Information at the University of Michigan, an M.S. in Digital Media from the Georgia Institute of Technology, and a B.A. in Social Communications from the Central American University (El Salvador). Before joining the faculty at Indiana University, Martell was a postdoctoral researcher at Louisiana State University.
Publications
Martell, A. A., & Espinoza Vasquez, F. K. (2023). Collaborative Interpreting Practice in Developing a Conceptual Boundary Object: The Case of Social Memory Infrastructures. In A. T. Chen, A. Chassanoff, R. Ma, I. Huvila, Z. Lischer-Katz, & M. Krtalić (Eds.), 86th Annual Meeting of the Association for Information Science and Technology (ASIS&T 2023). https://zenodo.org/records/10027677
Martell, A. A. (2023). "Post-Memorial Exhibitions: An approximation to negotiate cultural trauma through museum exhibition design." In C. B. Lara Martínez (Ed.), Historical Memory and Sociocultural Transformation in El Salvador (pp. 113–161). Research Institute at the School of Science and Humanities, University of El Salvador . https://hdl.handle.net/2022/29391
Martell, A. A. (2023). The exodus memory community: Leveraging oral history records to understand collected memories of violence. Memory Studies, 1–21. https://doi.org/10.1177/17506980221150893
Martell, A. A., Benoit, E. I., & Bronwlee, G. (2023). The Genre of Love Me Binders: U.S. Military Veterans Documenting their Service. Archivaria, Spring. https://archivaria.ca/index.php/archivaria/article/view/13899
Works in Progress
Martell, A. "An Opportunity to Stay Connected: Exploring the Role of Communication Practices, Technology Uses, and Information Policies in the Personal Records of U.S. Military Veterans" (Under peer review)
Martell, A; Wagner, T; Oltmann, S. " 'It Takes a toll on you': The role of affect in shaping queer archivists' experiences while documenting the HIV/AIDS epidemic" (In preparation)
Martell, A; Goryl, S. "Remembering January 6: Frames of remembrance on Twitter" (In preparation)