Participatory and Collaborative
We have many rings of stakeholders, and actively engage all relevant parties in defining the needs, developing questions, collecting data, and writing historical narratives.
About ALL-IN San Diego
San Diego History Center's hundred-year mission has been to preserve and present the history of the greater San Diego region. For much of this time, we focused on a narrow part of San Diego's history, but in the past decade recognized the need to include new perspectives into our narrative.
Launched in 2024, the ALL-IN San Diego Community History Archiving Project seeks to uncover the richness and complexity of San Diego's community. This is an in real time community engagement project that aims to bring untold stories to the San Diego History Center. ALL-IN listens, documents, shares, and disseminates through various physical and digital spaces.
By acknowledging the past's positive and negative aspects, and creating an inclusive dialogue about the historical record, All-IN San Diego contributes to our community’s well-being.
The stories and materials collected by the ALL-IN Project will be incorporated into the History Center’s new core exhibition, digital repositories, and traveling displays.
Ongoing All-In projects include: the City Heights Cohort, La Neighbor, Missing Pieces Project, Rap Diego, and the Ueno-Obayashi Family Collection.
About ALL-IN San Diego
San Diego History Center's hundred-year mission has been to preserve and present the history of the greater San Diego region. For much of this time, we focused on a narrow part of San Diego's history, but in the past decade recognized the need to include new perspectives into our narrative.
Launched in 2024, the ALL-IN San Diego Community History Archiving Project seeks to uncover the richness and complexity of San Diego's community. This is an in real time community engagement project that aims to bring untold stories to the San Diego History Center. ALL-IN listens, documents, shares, and disseminates through various physical and digital spaces.
By acknowledging the past's positive and negative aspects, and creating an inclusive dialogue about the historical record, All-IN San Diego contributes to our community’s well-being.
The stories and materials collected by the ALL-IN Project will be incorporated into the History Center’s new core exhibition, digital repositories, and traveling displays.
Ongoing All-In projects include: the City Heights Cohort, La Neighbor, Missing Pieces Project, Rap Diego, and the Ueno-Obayashi Family Collection.
Project Approaches and Understandings
Deep Listening
Within our forums and the community, we proactively listen for what is being said and not said. We listen more than we talk.
Attending to Power at All Levels
We seek to be sensitive to power dynamics by recognizing that there are inherent imbalances in any group of people, both internal and external to our work.
Asking Questions
Questions get us from point A to point B. Sometimes questions are bothersome, but they are often useful in elucidating hidden narratives.
It’s Messy
Community is complex. Collecting and writing history is complex. We have no illusions that this process is straightforward or easy.
Incrementalism
The work of collecting, documenting and writing community history happens in small steps, and from the outside looks slow. However, historical knowledge is built cumulatively.
Digital First
Though most historic material is in physical formats, our primary means of collecting is through digitization. We aim to digitize collected materials using best archival practices.
Post-Custodial Stewardship
Post-custodial stewardship emphasizes digital repositories and crowdsourcing, allowing community control of records.
History is a Contact Sport
Understanding and engaging with the past should not be left to academics. Creating an accurate historical record requires everyone's active participation.