Seeing Archives: Postmodernism and the Changing Intellectual Place of Archives

Abstract

Archivists have begun to outline the general application of a postmodern perspective to archival work. Postmodernists emphasize the idea that there is no way to avoid or neutralize the limits of the mediating influences that shape our understandings of our worlds. This postmodern outlook suggests an important new intellectual place for archives in the formation of records, knowledge, culture, and societies. This article aims to contribute more fully to an understanding of how the postmodern view of communication and language throws light on the role of archivists in mediating, and thus shaping, the knowledge available in archives. It concludes with the suggestion that this understanding of the role archivists play will be pivotal in archiving the computerized record.

Appraisal as Cartography: Cultural Studies in the Archives

“…Simply by lending authority and value to certain records and not others, archivists embed meanings of importance within the documents they select. 73 Some even suggest "archives may actually make a greater contribution to the creation of the record than the inscriber." 74 On a more mundane level, several archival methods, including documentation strategy and macro-appraisal, already incorporate records such as oral histories and photographs created by the archivist or a surrogate.…”

The Choreographer's Trust: Negotiating Authority in Peggy Baker's Archival Project

“…Indeed, any time choreographers are directly involved in preserving their own work, their authority will be reinforced, as historian and archival educator Tom Nesmith has written in relation to archiving: "[A]ny work of archives-making is a type of authoring or creating of the archival records" because archivists "co-create and shape the knowledge in records, and thus help to form society's memory" (emphasis in the original). 54 Nesmith's words bring to mind those of Jacques Derrida in his seminal text, Archive Fever , where he states that "archivization produces as much as it records the event." 55 Thus, some of the choices that Baker made throughout The Choreographer's Trust project emphasized that she never fully relinquished control of how her work might be interpreted.…”

Building an Infrastructure for Archival Research

“…Appraisal theory (Cook, 1992); development of Records Continuum theory and Records Continuum Model (Upward, 1996(Upward, , 1997; theorizing about the nature of the record and archival theory itself (Nesmith, 1999(Nesmith, , 2002; archival theory and deconstructionism (Harris, 2001); development of theories and models of archival description (Hurley in a series of articles, e.g. 1995a, b, 1998, 2000); archival hermeneutics (Brown, 1991-2).…”