Critical Archival Studies: An Introduction

Abstract

This special issue tackles critical approaches to archives and archival studies. Since the landmark 2002 Archival Science special issue on "archives, records, and power" edited by Joan M. Schwartz and Terry Cook, there has been an explosion of efforts to examine the ways in which records and archives serve as tools for both oppression and liberation. This recent scholarship and some community-based archival initiatives critically interrogate the role of archives, records and archival actions and practices in bringing about or impeding social justice, in understanding and coming to terms with past wrongs or permitting continued silences, or in empowering historically or contemporarily marginalized and displaced communities. These efforts employ a range of methods (from grounded theory to action research to discourse analysis) and are informed by several approaches to critical theory, ranging from decolonization to postcolonialism, feminism, queer theory, critical race theory, and deconstructionism. Notable topics in this arena explore the recordkeeping of oppressive regimes, examine evidence of genocide, racism and human rights violations, or trace the dynamics of postcolonialism and uneven distribution of power.2 By engaging these often painful, complex, and contentious 1

Uncertain Archives: Approaching the Unknowns, Errors, and Vulnerabilities of Big Data through Cultural Theories of the Archive

“…Such critical work would benefit highly from mutual dialogue between these disciplines. Critical archival science has been pivotal in questioning archival praxis through the lenses of feminist, queer, post-, and decolonial studies, drawing attention to affective responsibilities in archival practice, the often invisible labour of archivists, the materiality of digital archives, the ethical challenges of archiving sensitive material, the need for collective work with marginalised and vulnerable communities, and the relevance of archives for human rights, social justice, and care (Caswell and Cifor 2016;Cifor and Wood 2017;Caswell, Punzalan, and Sangwand 2017;Sutherland 2017a). These critiques of archival reason and practice can be mobilised towards a critical analysis of big data's repositories: they show that the piecing together of information is not a neutral pursuit, both capture and exclusion have important ethical consequences, and archives are always contested sites of power, knowledge, possibility, and aspiration.…”

“Displaced archives”: proposing a research agenda

“…However, I also argue for the integration of these and other relevant concepts into a "critical displaced archives theory". This notion builds on the emergence of "critical archival studies", defined by Caswell et al (2017) as "those approaches that (1) explain what is unjust with the current state of archival research and practice, (2) posit practical goals for how such research and practice can and should change, and/or (3) provide the norms for such critique" (p. 2). "A critical theory for displaced archives would be critical in its aim to explain injustices in cases of archival displacement, posit practical goals for their resolution, and provide a set of norms for achieving those aimspreliminarily affect, the imaginary and radical empathy" (Lowry 2019, p. 198).…”

Canon, Value, and Cultural Heritage: New Processes of Assigning Value in the Postdigital Realm

“…I will refer first to the case of the new macro and transnational repositories conceived as a sort of "archive of archives" or meta-archive, such as Europeana and the UNESCO World Digital Library, to cite just two very well-known examples, that must be analyzed from the perspective of the recently named "critical archival studies" [16]. Endorsed, promoted, and developed by metanational organizations as part of their long-term strategic policies, they can be thought as a translation of the traditional cultural institutions (archives, libraries, museums, etc.)…”