Mahdi Chowdhury is a researcher, writer, and doctoral student in History at Harvard University.
Mahdi Chowdhury
Articles by Mahdi Chowdhury:
Archives of Salt
in Issue 99 | Where You Stay (Jan 2022)In 1996, the King Abdulaziz Foundation for Research and Archives deployed a series of white vans equipped with “mobile laboratories for document sterilization and restoration” to selected locations across Saudi Arabia. Arriving at the doorsteps of hesitant owners of documents, representatives expressed their benign intention to offer “free, on-site preservation services.” If owners hesitated, they might have been reassured by the selfless slogan on the side of the archivists’ vans: “Together, we preserve the nation’s memory.”