Archives & Manuscripts #14

For my archives final paper, I am writing archival collecting and preservation policies are often reflective of the power dynamics of the nation-state and social hierarchies. Writing this paper has pushed me to read postmodern philosophers like Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida to learn more about the theories that inform scholars thoughts on the power embedded within institutions like archives. In particular, Derrida’s thoughts on archives found in his work Archive Fever and various other essays have exposed me to new ways of thinking about the roles that archives play in larger society.

One interesting theory that Derrida provides is that the archive is just as much about forgetting as it is about remembering. In most discussions of these topics, scholars present archives as a space that facilitates public memory. In its storing of historical documentation, the archives provides a space in which scholars can withdraw information in order to construct the manner in which societies collectively perceive their pasts. Yet, Derrida offers an interesting counterpoint. By storing the past away in a private, withdrawn place, the person who previously stored these memories can forget them and move forward with their lives.

This theory becomes particularly interesting when considering archiving of traumatic events, like the state violence perpetuated against citizens opposing Apartheid or supporting the Civil Rights Movement. Archiving the documentation of these events is absolutely important, yet it also commemorates and memorializes these struggles. These acts ultimately signal these movements as finished, problems that society has solved. In this sense, what is considered past has political motives. The archive ultimately allows a society to move forward because someone else is looking back and remembering for them. Like the pasts that historians study, the archive has many facets and many uses. It’s important that the past is preserved and the archive facilitates this process. Yet, before committing these events to memory, it might be useful to consider not only what role the archive plays in our society, but what role the past plays as well.