The text points out the oversaturation of the concept of Archives. They argue that “too many uses and meanings are being loaded onto the term” making conceptual and practical use disordered and siloed. Two examples are referring to archives as memory and as the internet. The author offers two new models to metaphorically view archives and the practice of archiving through which contributing to theory and practice.
Zeitlyn's article was certainly a stimulating one, since the piece raised a number of questions that we as anthropologists have to deal with, both in terms of how we engage with the 'field' as well as archiving the 'data' that we draw from the said engagement. Archives themselves are not 'neutral' repositories of human events but rather are part and parcel of the politics of power, memory and knowledge that the past, present and future are entangled in. The article draws from Foucault, Derrida and others to argue that archives have traditionally served as instruments of hegemony, whether it be colonial power structures or governments in general in order to gain control over subjects. Furthermore, the role of archivists in this equation is important in terms of determining which materials are included in the archives and which are discarded which leads to the question of the instrumental use of power in such knowledge categorization. "Present choices determine future history, selecting the materials available to future historians" ( pg 463 )
However, archives can also function at the opposite end of the specturm as instruments of subversion, as studying the archive to recover or restore silenced voices, dissident narratives and "understand people from archives in ways never intended or envisaged by those creating or maintaining the archives " (pg 464). Therefore, the focus is not on using archives but rather engaging with the archives themselves in an ethnographic manner ( ethnographic archives) in order to understand the practice of said archives, the archivist as well as the historian, in order to complicate the homogenity of discourses in order to 'reveal' the silences beneath and the processes that silenced these heterogenous narratives.
However, archives and archivists can and do function as "liminal zones in rites of passage between memory and forgetting" ( pg 466 ). Instead of building the understanding of the past on the quotidian practice of everyday memories, archives and museums are valorized as the product of collective memory. Hence, engaging with archives not as mere documentation but rather as social organizations in all their complexities, allows for the production of ethnographies of archives. What was in particular interestiing about Zietlyn's article was the insight that the way archives 'forget' is very different from how individuals forget memories, both in the process ( the role of archivists for example ) and the irremediable nature of the former. The past for the latter is based on the active reconstruction of events' remembered which can lead to new narratives about that past.
Zeitlyn's proposal for understanding archival ethnography as a performance is certainly one that I hope to read further into during this quarter. How do we view our anthropological 'archives' gleaned from fieldnotes, interviews, etc as archives of performance and what impact does that have on our own positionality within our field ( both when we are in the field collecting 'data' and when we are outside of it, drawing from the data to write our papers )? Furthermore, how does it further impact the divide between the idea of 'native' and the 'non native' athropologist or the 'insider -outsider' analogy? Furthermore, the ethical dilemma of anthropologists in relation to the use and archiving of their data gains traction as noted by Zeitlyn " They ( anthropologists) were reluctant to cede or allow access to their field notes ... yet were reluctant to ensure this will ever happen by burning or contemplating other forms of destruction " ( pg 472 ). Notwithstanding the institutional demands of the IRB, etc as well as the questions raised over anonymization or consent ( is that even possible in the truest sense, particularly in terms of reusing the 'data' for future research in ways that was not intended when it was first collected ?), is the destruction of our field notes even ethically viable, since the basis of those notes are not ours to own ( the memories of others for example)? How does archive ethnography, particularly in terms of archiving these anthropological research data, engage with these ethical questions? Zeitlyn argues that one way could be to engage with the different agents involved in the archiving of research communities as well as field sites.
What concepts, ideas and examples from this text contribute to the theory and practice of archive ethnography?
In the piece, I liked how the author combines the concepts of both Stoler (2009) and Trouillot (1995) by encouraging scholars to read along the grain and across it. Citing Trouillot (1995, p. 29), Zeitlyn argues that such an approach helps us “think about the power plays affecting silences, determining which stories get told and which leave traces.” Referring to the work of Guha (1983), Zeitlyn claims we can focus on understanding both “how records were created (reading along the grain) to recover history from below (reading across the grain)” (p. 465). Though I am a bit unsure of what it means to read along and across the grain, I think this approach is a helpful reflective practice that can be used in archive ethnography to reexamine how the creation and curation processes of archives affect the stories they tell and, importantly, who gets to “speak.”
There was much in this article to contribute to the theory and practice of archive ethnography - I hope to touch on the points that were most influential and helpful for me. First, I appreciated the discourse on reading “against the grain” with existing archives. For me, this is especially useful as much material on California prisons exists in state and federal archives but the voices of prisoners and the emphasis on rehabilitation is typically invisible. I love the idea of using an existing archive for insurrection and subversion. Additionally, there was a direct call for the ethnography of the archive as a way for the curator/researcher to be an active participant and historian, to tie together structures and ideas as they are presented in the collection. I appreciated the discussion about the internet as an archive because it is so far-reaching that it becomes difficult to carefully curate. Additionally, the caution about digital archives was so helpful because I hadn’t considered that technology changes rapidly and archivists should take care to create their archives in a way that is accessible and compatible with new technology or risk losing it.