Fechner, Fabian: Knowledge Knots on the Spot. Colonial Archives through the Looking Glass of the Archival Turn – the Cases of Caracas and Buenos Aires (original) (raw)
Related papers
2017
The global history of knowledge which has developed in recent years is focused on what we know and how we know it. The analysis of global knowledge transfer not only depends on individuals and institutions that made the circulation of information possible, but also on the way documents were intentionally stored and organized. However, the question of how archives, libraries, and other repositories reorganized knowledge, connected disconnected events, and developed techniques of record keeping in a colonial situation has hardly been answered. European central archives are the better known side of information and communication processes, but the aspect of interconnectedness and mutuality in these processes is usually neglected. The main purpose of this paper is to explore the overseas part of the colonial archive, not the European center. As a case study, two Latin American local archives are chosen, the Franciscan Archive in Caracas and the Jesuit Archive in Buenos Aires. The archivi...
In 2021, we commemorate 500 years since the fall of the Aztec capital Tenochtitlan and the subsequent foundation of Mexico City by the Spanish. That event had a huge impact on world history, not only in terms of redefining Atlantic connections but also by setting in motion a complex series of glocalization processes. In this editorial that introduces a monographic issue on the "glocal world of historical archives", we take a cue from that event in our effort to analyze the underground networks and the sometimes-mysterious intertwining that connect apparently distant documentary sources. We propose that the historical experience and the practical use of archives are not minor problems in a glocal approach: thinking about the glocal (and changing) complexity of archives as the core theme of historical research. This concerns all hermeneutic and holistic views of social investigation that must discuss the configuration of archives as another crucial element of the contemporary age, in search of the secret connections between past, present, and future.
Archival Science, 2010
Developing a relativistic concept of the pre-modern archive, this article considers the relationship between knowledge inside and outside the archive to determine how Spain’s historical documents about its new American territories were kept and used. The starting assumption is that collections of documents about the Spanish Conquista circulated among people and were not permanently stored within fixed archival spaces, such as small lockable cases (arcas), private collections of documents (archivillos), or the actual state archives (archivos). This article thus re-evaluates the state of knowledge about the new American territories of Spain and its distribution across various archives and collections. It draws particular attention to the use of historical documents by official chroniclers of Spain and historians of the Conquista of the Spanish Americas.
The Glocal World of Historical Archives
Glocalism, 2021
In 2021, we commemorate 500 years since the fall of the Aztec capital Tenochtitlan and the subsequent foundation of Mexico City by the Spanish. That event had a huge impact on world history, not only in terms of redefining Atlantic connections but also by setting in motion a complex series of glocalization processes. In this editorial that introduces a monographic issue on the "glocal world of historical archives", we take a cue from that event in our effort to analyze the underground networks and the sometimes-mysterious intertwining that connect apparently distant documentary sources. We propose that the historical experience and the practical use of archives are not minor problems in a glocal approach: thinking about the glocal (and changing) complexity of archives as the core theme of historical research. This concerns all hermeneutic and holistic views of social investigation that must discuss the configuration of archives as another crucial element of the contemporary age, in search of the secret connections between past, present, and future.
This research recovers methodological and heuristic interests that developed a few years ago, which have led us to work on the local and global historical archives from a humanistic horizon. This task puts us in a different place as historians, for it forces us to rethink the social function of the archives and of the historians in those archives. In the Northeast region of present-day Argentina, the space for discussion on archives begins to be a terrain won over by historians, who develop projects to recover, digitise and conserve documentary sources. Throughout this article we will focus on characterising a set of global and local archives that are vital to Rioplatense colonial history. We are interested in problematizing about documentary dispersion and how we build documentary corpus from sources that lie in different repositories. Beyond exploring them and briefly entering its institutional history, the work is oriented to present an in-depth analysis of the documentary typologies that can be found in those archives and that are vital to historical research in the region.
GLOCALISM: JOURNAL OF CULTURE, POLITICS AND INNOVATION, 2021
This research recovers methodological and heuristic interests that developed a few years ago, which have led us to work on the local and global historical archives from a humanistic horizon. This task puts us in a different place as historians, for it forces us to rethink the social function of the archives and of the historians in those archives. In the Northeast region of present-day Argentina, the space for discussion on archives begins to be a terrain won over by historians, who develop projects to recover, digitise and conserve documentary sources. Throughout this article we will focus on characterising a set of global and local archives that are vital to Rioplatense colonial history. We are interested in problematizing about documentary dispersion and how we build documentary corpus from sources that lie in different repositories. Beyond exploring them and briefly entering its institutional history, the work is oriented to present an in-depth analysis of the documentary typologies that can be found in those archives and that are vital to historical research in the region.
The New Culture of Archives in Early Modern Spain
European History Quarterly, 2016
What sort of progress took place in the archives of Spain from the late fifteenth to the early seventeenth century? This is the question which this article seeks to answer by reflecting on the nomenclature assigned to various repositories of documentary memory, from 'chest of privileges' to 'archival chamber', whilst also focusing on the process of 'archival consolidation' which took place in different political and institutional spheres, from the Monarchy to municipal government. With this aim in mind, the article will also review a series of official regulations, beginning with the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, which sought both to rein in the disorder and dispersion of royal documents, and to promote the preservation of municipal and notarial papers. Given that no archive can exist without a basic system of order, this study also seeks to address the different forms of organization and control of documentary memory, emphasizing the diverse systems that were adopted and their purposes. This raises a final question, that of the uses of archives, which ranged from serving the needs of different levels of governance and administration, to the organization of an ever-growing body of information and its simultaneous use in the writing of history, as reflected in the work of diverse chroniclers in a period that was increasingly characterized by the practice of local historiography.
Archives and Manuscripts, 2020
The Canary Islands were conquered from the aboriginal population and colonised in the fifteenth century. This process subjected its inhabitants to the Castilian legal framework, in which evidence of ownership was demanded through documentary proof. Archives, therefore, proliferated in the new territory as a necessity to demonstrate, prove and preserve privileges and patrimony. At the same time, the ‘value’ of archives made them targets for destruction, theft or seizure in situations of social, political, military and family conflict. Moreover, Canary Island archives were affected by natural causes and natural disasters. Within this context, the present paper focuses on the transformations caused by these factors in family archives. The paper aims to explain how, in cases of damage or destruction, families struggled to reconstruct their archives in order to manage and defend their patrimony and family memory. Drawing on different examples, this paper offers empirical evidence on the multicontextualism of these archives. The results demonstrate that several family archives in the Canary Islands are (re)constructions from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Moreover, the archival practices can be framed within a progressive inclusion in the islands of the ‘New Archive Culture’ from mainland Spain.
In recent decades, and on the basis of what is called the "archival turn", different theoretical and methodological reflections have been made about the archives, their origins, configurations and uses. On the one hand, other types of archives have begun to receive attention. Thus, outside imperial, state or official repositories, the analysis of family or personal records, as well as that of peasant and indigenous communities, have been brought into focus in studies which intensify the oppositions between the public and the private spheres, orality and writing, paper documents and other types of material media. Taking these contributions as the starting point, and within the framework of our own research studies about indigenous peoples, we set forth from the dilemma we face when reflecting upon the dialogues and tensions generated around the construction of the past, when those who engage in dialogue and dispute are actors with dissimilar experiences, interests and power (indigenous people, academicians, state agents). On the basis of the idea put forth by Fabian about a theory-and praxis of-coevalness, understood as a condition for the existence of a dialogic encounter between people and societies, and accepting this author's invitation to "share our pasts", the aim of this article is to provide some methodological notes on the place of the "archive" as a possible point of intersection and dialogues. Therefore, our main objective is to rethink/question the "archive", considering it, as Stoler does, not only as a site of knowledge retrieval, but essentially as a place of knowledge production.