The Allure of the Archives

Farge, Arlette; Scott-Railton, Thomas; Davis, Natalie Zemon

doi:10.12987/yale/9780300176735.001.0001

Cited by 214 publications

(22 citation statements)

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“…As a theoretical basis for exploring data and uncertainty in the humanities, this is a powerful model but somewhat removed from the wide variety of observable practices in humanistic disciplines. A more empirical account can perhaps be found in Arlette Farge's The Allure of the Archives [11], which gives a rich and detailed account of the many faceted challenges of attempting to create knowledge via the instrument of original sources held in historical archives. From the very outset, the reader of this text is struck by the omnipresent language of uncertainty-the researcher is "unaware .…”

Section: Defining Uncertainty In the Humanitiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Strategies and Recommendations for the Management of Uncertainty in Research Tools and Environments for Digital History

Edmond

2019

Informatics

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This paper takes a high-level view of both the sources and status of uncertainty in historical research and the manners in which possible negative effects of this omnipresent characteristic might be managed and mitigated. It draws upon both the experience of a number of digital projects and research into the many-faceted concept of uncertainty in data, and in particular, it explores the conflicting strategies for the management of uncertainty in historical research processes that are reflected in the historiographical and digital humanities literature. Its intention is to support a dialogue between the humanities and computer science, able to realise the promise of digital humanities without a reversion to a new positivism in disciplines such as history and literary studies and it therefore concludes with recommendations for the developers of research tools and environments for digital history.

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Section: Defining Uncertainty In the Humanitiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Strategies and Recommendations for the Management of Uncertainty in Research Tools and Environments for Digital History

Edmond

2019

Informatics

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“…Archives are spaces configured by both scarcity and abundance. As much as they are haunted by ghosts and scattered with fragments and traces, so too are these traces measured by the thousand; by the ‘kilometres they span [across] linear meters of shelves’, in ways that are both ‘unsettling and colossal’ (Farge and Davis , 4–5). McGeachan et al .…”

Section: Archives and Abundance: Traces By The Thousandmentioning

confidence: 99%

On absence and abundance: biography as method in archival research

Hodder

2017

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Geographical scholarship has rightly problematised the act of archival research, showing how the practice of archiving is not only concerned with how a society collectively remembers, but also forgets. As such, the dominant motif for discussing historical methods in geography has been through the lens of absence: the archive is a space of ‘traces’, ‘fragments’ and ‘ghosts’. In this paper I suggest that the focus on incompleteness and partiality, while true, may also belie what many geographers working in archives find their greatest difficulty: an overwhelming volume of source materials. I reflect on my own research experiences in the pacifist archive to suggest that the growing scale and scope of many collections, along with the taxing research demands of transnational perspectives, pose immediate practical challenges for geographers characterised as much by abundance as by absence. In the second half of the paper, drawing on recent scholarship in history and geography, I argue that the method of biography offers one possible strategy for navigating archival abundance, allowing geographers to tell stories that are wider, deeper and more revealingly complex within the existing time and financial constraints of humanities research.

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“…Robinson likewise characterizes the historian's work as a "powerful affective experience," describing the thrill of chasing up evidence and pleasure of finding treasures in the archives. Others have since emphasized the "allure" of being "seduced" by the archive (Farge 2013;Hattrick 2014). Contributors to this issue take up this theme, recognizing that the potential of objects to elicit particular emotions does not end one or even 100 years after their creation.…”

Section: Interpreting Emotionsmentioning

confidence: 99%