Archival Research
- Primary sources
- Government records held in public archives
- Company records and private papers
- Documents
- Maps, photographs
Conducting Archival Research
Before the archive
- Familiarity with the existing literature
- Write to the archives you intend to visit.
- Outline your research
- Archivist
- Not a library
At the archives
* Meet the archivist
* User card
* “pencil only”
* “documents”
* Note taking strategies
Analysis
* Power relations
* Colonial archive
* Technical issues
Harris 2001, p. 332
“Archival scholarship at its best, it seems to me, is an _______________”
ongoing, evolving interaction between the scholar and the voices of the past embedded in the documents
Accessing Evidence in Archives
- No source should _________________
be taken at face value: all sources must be evaluated critically and contextually
Archival
Research
“I would simply
describe archival
research as somewhat
akin to confidently
accepting the challenge
of working on a jigsaw
puzzle where you can
be reasonably certain
that pieces are missing
and that the box cover
with the picture of the
completed puzzle will
never be found”
