I really enjoyed reading this compilation of articles regarding the archive experiences of several different people, including professional historians. At first it came as sort of a surprise to think of an archive (an institution meant to make history accessible) as limiting history. To be honest, it really forced me to think about the archive as an interpreter of history. If an archivist, or the powers that be, do not deem (or in this case, interpret) a document as having archival or enduring value they do not accession or acquire it. And therefore, it is not preserved in the archive or made available to the public. So, in a way, the archive interprets what is of historical importance. The archive is limited by what an archivist deems to be of enduring value and of historical import or significance.
The American Association of Museums believes an archive is a museum. And like other museums, the archive can misinterpret and misrepresent history. The archive can have its own agenda; can be manipulated by political pressure, as well as a slew of other things. I was a bit shocked by this. I was certainly shocked to read about the State Archives of South Africa. An archive is meant to preserve records, right? Not destroy them. Talk about misrepresenting history.
One important theme I noticed throughout the articles was the ability of the archive to present a national narrative, national identity, or a collective history. Archives project a national identity, what the country views as their true, shared story. And in a way, it seems as though the archive is capable of controlling what the public is exposed to, which narrative they will portray, and even who has access to it. Just on a small sidenote, it broke my heart to read the difficulty one person had trying to see a collection of information regarding passports. I thought that an archive existed to make that sort of knowledge accessible and available. Guess I was wrong?
I really enjoyed the articles dealing with archives in an entirely different sense than strictly a repository of documents. The archive can be so much more: a person as their own archive of memories, or a novel, or even the world wide web (heaven help us). By doing this it is almost asking what is history, what do we consider to be history?
I think Burton did an excellent job of taking these different articles, all about similar yet very different archive experiences or stories, and putting them together in a clear discussion about the variety, defense, and treatment of historical knowledge. I really find it hard to think negatively of a collection that got me to think more than I ever thought I would about archives, but I did have one problem with the collection. I would have LOVED to see an article by an archivist, or someone directly involved with an archive. For some reason I think that would have been a great archive story to have in addition to all these other great stories.
2 comments:
I too was upset upon learning the diffculties Uzbek researchers had in even accessing their archives. In my digitizing history class, it has been made clear multiple times that the documents in the Archive are owned by the people, they are OUR documents. While that is technically the case in Uzbekistan, it is obviously not being practiced. That whole essay in general made me sad about the Uzbekistan archiving profession.
I had inadvertently not committed on a second Burton article. Having read Kristen’s commits on the Burton article I would have to agree with her about finding the difficulties Uzbek researchers had in even accessing their archives upsetting. I also was not surprised by the difficulties these researchers had and how their experiences at the archives influenced their research. I believe that people want to see institutions as neutral and benevolent, but they know this is not the case which is why they look to other means. I believe that archives set their own rules and standards and that those rules and standards are different for every person, but the rules are set for the protection of the artifacts. I believe if the same situation the Uzbek researchers faced had occurred in the United States they would not have had a great of difficulty in accessing the archives.
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