Zeitlyn identifies Derrida and Foucault as key starting points for understanding archives—as hegemonic devices that shape modes of colonization and control citizens’ ways of thinking but can also be read subversively. Power is exercised through the determination of what is included in the archival record and validation of certain representations through appraisal, selection, organization, and cataloging. However, subaltern voices can be drawn out of archives through counter-readings along and across the archival grain.
“To destroy field material is an extreme assertion of ownership. … Destruction is an extraordinary act of power (an act of hubris) and prevents colleagues from the communities studied from reconsidering our work” (473)
