Room for archives? Use of archival materials in No Gun Ri research

Abstract

Archivists have long tried to understand users from the viewpoint of their archival collections. Such an approach misses important perspectives about use in, and users of, archives; how they perform research and develop knowledge while using archives. This study aims to comprehend the use of archival materials in research from the users' perspective. It attempts to understand users' perceptions of the impact of archival collections on their research, how and when archival materials are involved in the research process and how much weight they grant those materials in support of their thesis, from an actual research topic, the No Gun Ri massacre. The case of the No Gun Ri incident provides a good example of how archival materials play a role in historical discussions and an opportunity to look at archival contributions. No Gun Ri researchers acknowledged that archival documents were essential source materials for details about the incident and a major player in stimulating controversies and, consequently, provided the impetus for further publications. General recordkeeping situations also provided a circumstantial context of the incident. However, No Gun Ri researchers agreed that oral history was the most valuable and influential evidence for their major ideas and used archival documents to provide hard facts about the details of oral history. There are some unique research patterns of No Gun Ri researchers identified in this study which are different from the typical assumptions of archivists.

“Primary Sources Belong in a Library but in a Special Place”: Corporate Identity and User Perspective on the Positioning of Archives in Academic Libraries

“…Sinn's study of American and Korean researchers who published work on the No Gun Ri massacre suggest that users are not familiar with archives. 26 Many of her participants received or found archival materials for their research within the community rather than in the archives, leaving these repositories unknown. During the course of her study, the participants expressed concern with the truthfulness and value of archival resources since they are not objective.…”

Competência Arquivística e Inteligência Arquivística como vertentes da Competência em Informação no horizonte da Arquivologia contemporânea

“…As temáticas "usos e usuários em arquivos" foram pautadas inclusive nos Congressos Internacionais de Arquivos, promovidos pelo Conselho Internacional de Arquivos nos anos de 1966de , 1968de , 1976de e 1981FONSECA, 2004). Tais discussões possibilitaram ampliar o foco para além do objeto arquivístico e seus processos, alcançando assim, usos e usuários de informações e documentos em ambientes arquivísticos, apontando a necessidade de mudança do foco do objeto para o sujeito; a existência de padrões de processo de busca de informações pelos usuários de arquivo; além da relevância do uso e dos estudos de usuários enquanto campo de pesquisa (SINN, 2010).…”

Towards Archival Justice: The Case of Nogŭn-ri Massacre During the Korean War

“…This growing body of evidence attracted the attention first of the South Korean public. Later, through journalist Sang-hun Choe, the correspondent for Associated Press in Seoul, it became known to the English-speaking public as well (Sinn, 2010). The work by Choe and his collaborators on the story was ultimately awarded a Pulitzer prize, but was politically controversial -with members of the US military arguing that it was based on faulty evidence, and the US officials investigating the atrocity taking what seemed to some to be an excessively conservative approach to the evidence.…”

“…Above all, the drafters of the US report claimed that any massacre that occurred was the result of confusion or unsanctioned actions on the part of the US soldiers, and was not part of any formal US policy (Sinn, 2009;Conway-Lanz, 2005). In South Korea itself, the collective memory of the survivors, which of course brought the massacre itself to broader public attention, has been considered much more important (Sinn, 2010). Considering the well-documented racism of many of the US officers and soldiers involved in the war, and their almost complete lack of Korean-language skills (Cumings, 2010, pp.…”