B 13 essay
New: performing the archive
Karl-Magnus Johansson
The Real Thing
Conjunction of Archival Theories For at least the last half century, the concept of the archive has come to take dual paths in theoretical discussions. The first would be the development within traditional archival science and practice, “rooted in nineteenth-century positivism,” that has been closely connected to state bureaucracy and public archives. When facing the challenges of a “postmodern and computerized world,” there has been an emphasis on defining information and knowledge as social and organizational resources and values. These influences from management science and organizational theory are reasonable given the context in which most professional archivists operate. There is also a long-term ongoing development in which archives are repositioned within the field of cultural heritage. As archivist Terry Cook points out, during the last century there has been a shift in archival institutions, from a “juridical-administrative justification for archives grounded in concepts of the state” to “a socio- cultural justification for archives grounded in wider public policy and public use.”1 The second, parallel elaboration of the concept of the archive has evolved in academic fields and practices outside the traditional archival community. An important contribution in this direction is the work by philosopher Michel Foucault from the late 1960s, in which the archive is included as a central concept in his discourse analysis framework.2 To Foucault, the archive is not limited to being defined as the collection of preserved documents from state bureaucracies, companies or families; rather, he lets information leave its material surfaces and organizational context:
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