Introduction: memory ethics—or the presence of the past in the present (original) (raw)
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Archival Science, 2002
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History Workshop Journal, 2007
Archiving otherwise : some remarks on memory and historical responsibility
Studia Historiae Ecclesiasticae Volume 31 Number 2, 2005
This essay seeks to contribute to the ongoing discussion on memory, historiography and archiving by engaging Jacques Derrida’s influential book Archive fever: A Freudian impression. The first part of the essay deals with Derrida’s reflections on the word ‘archive’, as well as his discussion of the possibility of the destruction of the archive through the death drive and his argument about the archive and the openness towards the future. The rest of the essay aims, in conversation with Derrida, at reconfiguring archival passion as a passion for the past, a passion for justice and a passion for the future.
Ethics and Truth in Archival Research
History of Education, 2015
Tesar, M. (2015). Ethics and truth in archival research. History of Education. 44(1), 101–114. doi: 10.1080/0046760X.2014.918185 The complexities of the ethics and truth in archival research are often unrecognised or invisible in educational research. This paper complicates the process of collecting data in the archives, as it problematises notions of ethics and truth in the archives. The archival research took place in the former Czechoslovakia and its turbulent political history influenced the way data were accessed and collected. The article analyses the productive power of archival institutions and their guardians, and examines the ethical dilemma of discovering sensitive information. Archival institutions hold the secrets that, once uncovered, can have powerful ramifications. It will be argued that the nature of truth in the archives is complex, and the author complicates and challenges the perception that archives are ethically neutral research spaces that do not need to consider approval from research ethics committees.
Archival Science, 2011
Codes of ethics around the globe exhort archivists to neutrality so that they and their repositories will be trusted by records creators, the general public, and posterity to be impartial in their actions. However, archival neutrality is increasingly viewed as a controversial stance for a profession that is situated in the midst of the politics of memory. Archival educators have been prominent among those calling for the profession to address more directly the cultural and ethical dimensions of the role played by archives and records in society. This paper contemplates how archival neutrality and social justice concerns can surface within the context of archival education. Drawing upon experiences of the Department of Information Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), it suggests pedagogical approaches for raising and addressing ethics and diversity issues within a social justice framework, and for encouraging students, as future practitioners and scholars, to engage critically, reflexively, and meaningfully with these issues in ways that support the public trust in archives and the archival profession.
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Archival Science, 2020
Legal and regulatory edicts that apply to archives focus on the value of the archival matter. The case study at the heart of this study discusses the rules pertaining to archives under Israeli law and analyzes them through a novel theoretical perspective that sees public depositories of information as media that partake in the creation and sustenance of society’s memory. This study broadens the discussion on archives in relation to memory by focusing on the elements of archive laws developed in Israel. Analyzing the policies behind the operation of archives we highlight the legal requirements for both public and private archives, the criteria by which “archival matter” is defined, the balances created between the right for freedom of informa- tion and other rights such as privacy, the rules regarding the elimination of archival material, and the obligations on choosing which records to keep, and we wonder how these legal requirements influence memory processes. Utilizing this memory- driven analysis, the study uncovers the mechanisms by which laws and regulations influence “social memory.” By bringing the discussion regarding the worlds of regu- lation and memory under the roof of archive regulation, we offer a novel under- standing of memory processes, the power of regulat
Archives in a wider world: the culture and politics of archives
Archivaria, 2001
Archives in a Wider World: The Culture and Politics of Archives * SARAH TYACKE RÉSUMÉ L'auteure propose ici une réflexion sur quelques questions que soulèvent la culture, la critique littéraire, l'histoire et le post-modernisme pour la gestion des documents, les archives et les archivistes, d'un point de vue britannique. Cet essai se fonde sur les changements observés, au cours des dix dernières années, dans la place des archives telle que perçue dans différents pays. L'auteure soutient que les archivistes ont le rôle majeur de résoudre les tensions sociales contemporaines concernant ce qu'il faut conserver et détruire et ce qu'il convient d'ouvrir ou de restreindre, que ce soit pour le présent ou, plus important encore, pour les générations futures. Les archivistes doivent expliquer de façon claire les fondements de leurs décisions et comprendre les biais inhérents qui les sous-tendent. ABSTRACT This is a reflective essay on some of the cultural, literary criticism, historical, and postmodern implications for records management and archiving, archives, and archivists from a point of view situated in the United Kingdom. It is based on observing the changes, over the past ten years, in the position of archives in various countries' perceptions. The author maintains that archivists have the critical role of producing an archiving resolution of the tensions in society at any one time between what should be kept and destroyed, and what should be open and closed-both for the present and, more importantly, for future generations. Archivists need to make the manner of the archival resolution clear and understand the inherent biases in the processes necessary to achieve that resolution. * This is a revised version of an unrefereed article for a Festchrift. I am indebted to discussions I have had with Michael Moss, Elizabeth Hallam-Smith, and Ian Willison. In particular, they have improved my own slender knowledge of the battleground between postmodernists (or at least some) and other historians (or at least some) and drawn my attention to the work of Richard J. Evans, In Defence of History, 2d ed. (London, 1997).
Memory Studies, 2019
Remembering past injustices has been regarded as central to overcoming intra-societal conflicts with the end of World War II. Since, memory has increasingly been charged as a means to achieve reconciliation. But only in recent years have archives, and here especially human rights archives, in the Mashreq and Maghreb moved from being semi-functional repositories for academics to become important loci for political activists to reappraise violence and injustice. The role of the archive in preserving or erasing personal memories is critically investigated by such activists. This article covers an emergent discourse on the memory milieus of violent conflict, war, and occupation extant in this region. In a selective overview covering Morocco, the Western Sahara, Lebanon, and Egypt, it asks what the visibility of violent experiences means for the wider social context and how traumatic pasts are re-socialized through private and public archiving initiatives. The author investigates the archive less as a place of storage than as a milieu around which various actors conceptualize the past and struggle over future justice.