The silence of the archives: business history, post-colonialism and archival ethnography

Abstract

History as a discipline has been accused of being a-theoretical. Business historians working at business schools, however, need to better explicate their historical methodology, not theory, in order to communicate the value of archival research to social scientists, and to train future doctoral students outside history departments. This paper seeks to outline an important aspect of historical methodology, which is data collection from archives. In this area, postcolonialism and archival ethnography have made significant methodological contributions not just for non-Western history, as it has emphasized the importance of considering how archives were created, and how one can legitimately use them despite their limitations. I argue that these approaches offer new insights into the particularities of researching business archives.

Novas Fontes, Novas Versões: Contribuições do Acervo da Comissão Nacional da Verdade

“…Assumindo que tanto a memória quanto o esquecimento acerca dos fatos históricos podem ser instrumentos de dominação, de legitimação e de construção de identidade organizacional (Decker, 2013;Rowlinson, Booth, Clark, Delahaye, & Procter, 2010), pode-se perguntar como as empresas se apropriam de seu passado e contam hoje a sua história e a sua atuação na sociedade durante o período da ditadura civil-militar brasileira. Expurgam o que não é considerado por seus clientes e acionistas como ético?…”

“…Outra parte prioriza como foco uma melhor compreensão acerca das organizações e empresas nos dias de hoje, a partir da análise de fontes que tornem possível identificar o contexto e o processo histórico de sua constituição (Alcadipani & Bertero, 2012;Anteby & Molnar, 2012;Durepos, Mills, & Mills, 2008). Englobando estudos não somente sobre o passado e o futuro das organizações, mas também acerca do sentido do passado e do futuro para as organizações, alguns pesquisadores interessam-se por identificar e problematizar processos organizacionais por detrás das histórias oficiais das empresas e as razões para que essas histórias sejam escolhidas e não outras (A. M. Costa & Saraiva, 2011;Decker, 2013). A maior parte das pesquisas, entretanto, interessa-se pela identificação e análise de fontes e acervos históricos que legitimem o resgate e a gestão de uma determinada trajetória histórica, com seus desdobramentos em narrativas memorialísticas, usadas de forma estratégica pelas empresas e organizações (Decker, 2014;Foster, Suddaby, Minkus, & Wiebe, 2011).…”

Facing the Normative Challenges: The Potential of Reflexive Historical Research

“…It further faces the problem of survivor bias: i.e., sources are lost, widely dispersed and hard to identify (Decker, 2013). Even the identification of a suitable research site might be difficult, for instance, due to the preservation habits of companies, the arbitrarily granted access to company archives or the time seal that may prevent the use of material before a certain time has elapsed (Lipartito, 2014).…”

“…From there, we then started to systematically collect any material related to LG's approach to Eastern trade in the company archive, for instance, minutes of the BoD, correspondence letters, transcripts of speeches, internal reports, newspaper articles and so on. It is important to note that we never considered these empirical materials to be a clear window into the company's past (Decker, 2013), but saw them as intentionally constructed, value-laden and ambiguous.…”

Commemorating alternative organizations and marginalized spaces: The case of forgotten Finntowns

“…Commemoration of the past may vary during different historical time periods since 'the issue which motivates its selection and shaping is always to be found among the concerns of the present' (Schwartz, 1982: 395). Organizational theory has also begun to interrogate the uses of history within organizational studies, which has a similar link to the use of organizational commemoration (Decker, 2013;Rowlinson et al, 2014aRowlinson et al, , 2014bSuddaby et al, 2010). History can be understood critically in terms of rhetoric or power as strategists within organizations view history as a malleable asset to be used to their advantage (Suddaby et al, 2010).…”