Zimbabwe’s Economic Decline, Archives Access Regimes, Professionalism, and Their Impact on Researcher-Archivist Relations at the National Archives of Zimbabwe

Abstract

This article discusses the manner in which Zimbabwe’s faltering economy affects the functioning of the National Archives of Zimbabwe (NAZ). It also looks at the NAZ access regimes, ethical and professional issues, and their ramifications on archivist-researcher relations. It observes that the conflict of interest between the mandate of archivists to preserve and conserve archives and researchers’ need for access to archives at the NAZ occasionally complicates researcher-archivist interaction. This is because, as professionals and government employees, archivists must follow ethical standards and archival regulations governing the preservation, conservation, and access to archives, even if the same access guidelines and archival practices are not always in the best interests of researchers. This article uses the term “archivists” to explicitly refer to the NAZ staff members who assist researchers at the control desk by identifying, retrieving, and acquiring photocopies of required archives/documents, whilst the term “researchers” refers to both academic and non-academic users of the archives. The issues discussed in this article are pertinent to professional archivists as well as local and foreign researchers, both seasoned and junior, who want to do research at the NAZ and other African archives.