Session 4 Social Memory and Evidence

Friday 11 April 10.50-12.30

Andreas Litschel
  • Fakultät für Geschichtswissenschaft
  • Philosophie und Theologie
  • Universität Bielefeld, Germany
Perpetuating Replacement. Representing Archives and the Imaginary of Social History

The issue at the heart of the paper is the point at which the indispensable becomes a blind spot; namely, the point at which "the archive" (understood as any institutional long-term deposit of documentation) can fulfil its function as tool and/or foundational myth of social history only by concealing its own logic and momentum. The paper asks, more particularly, how specific historical technologies of writing down and storing knowledge condition our conceptions of pre-modern sociality.

Drawing on the applicant's Ph.D. research on a Late Medieval town in Northern Germany, it will be argued that certain pivotal figurations of social relatedness - in the 'language of the sources' as well as in historical and sociological concept formation - can, in fact, be described as effects of these same 'archival' technologies.

The fact that these figurations have, in the past, often served as arguments for decidedly non-technological, naturalising points about 'pre-modern kinship' raises some provocative questions about the historical imaginary. It can also be shown that these effects of the archive work on two levels: Not only for the historian, in the sense of a problem of long-distance optics, but also for contemporaries, who find themselves caught up in dramatic changes in what might be called the social assignment of writing(s).

It will be argued that a 'practical theory' of replacement unfolding in the Late Middle Ages is essential to understanding these effects, closely connected to the twin problems of safeguarding documentary transfer in the long duration and the ever-growing complaint of "too much writing". Thus, intriguing convergences can be shown between both social and archival practices of addressing and relating: archival practices and figurations of social relatedness can be described as a particularly configured interplay between a pragmatic proliferation of representations and substitutions, on the one hand, and highly selective concepts of transfer, on the other. This connection may be relevant not only to social historians, who would have to assess the determination of their 'sources' (und their findings) through specific technologies of knowledge anew, but also to archivists and archival theorists when reflecting on the historical aspect of the archive as a place of transformation.

Andreas Litschel, M. A., studied and graduated in History and English at Bielefeld University. Since being awarded a PhD scholarship at the Graduate Research Programme "Archives, Power, and Knowledge" at Bielefeld University, he is pursuing research on "Inheritance, Friends and the Writing of Relatedness. Naming, Reference and Transfer in Late Medieval Lüneburg" under the supervision of Prof. Bernhard Jussen (Bielefeld University) and Prof. Peter Schuster (Saarland University). He has held conference talks e. g. at Göttingen University and at the 2005 annual meeting of the German Sociological Society's (DGS) section for social anthropology and development sociology. Other academic interests include historical semantics, media studies and early modern science and technology.


Jennifer Meehan
  • Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library
  • Yale University
The archival nexus: Re-thinking the interplay of ideas about the nature, value and use of records

Archival debates about the value and use of records typically stem from a perceived conflict between two supposedly competing interests-that of the record-creator and that of the record-user-which has led to a dichotomy between evidence and memory in archival discourse. On one side, the record-creator's perspective informs archival ideas about evidential value and the use of records for accountability; and on the other side, the record-user's perspective informs archival ideas about historical value and the use of record for culture. Yet, assertions about the value and use of records, various though they may be, are all based on particular ideas about the nature of records and share similar assumptions about how records stand in relation to past events. An archival perspective that explores and articulates this crucial area of convergence could lay the groundwork for a different discussion of the value and use of records and for a different understanding of the overlap between archival ideas and ideas from other disciplines.

In an article entitled "Towards an Archival Concept of Evidence," I put forth an idea of evidence as a relation between record and event, maintaining that this particular relationship underpins archival ideas about the nature, value and use of records. I went on to employ this idea as a "conceptual lens" through which to view and re-consider the fundamental activities of archival practice. In the proposed paper, I will apply this "conceptual lens" to some of the debates surrounding evidential and historical value and the perceived conflicts between the use of records for accountability and culture, reframing these debates and conflicts as different, rather than differing, interpretations of and interactions with records. The goal is to re-think the interplay of archival ideas about the nature, value, and use of records, suggesting that it is a nexus rather than a dichotomy. The discussion will critically examine the assumptions underpinning the different interpretations of and interactions with records, explore the possible areas of convergence between the discourses on evidence and memory, and reflect on how the archival perspective might inform and be informed by other disciplines.

Jennifer Meehan currently serves as Accessioning Archivist in the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Yale University. She previously held the positions of Project Archivist at the Archives of American Art at the Smithsonian Institution and Manuscript Archivist in the Special Collections unit of the University Libraries at Virginia Tech. She received her Master's in Archival Studies from the University of British Columbia, and her B.A. in English Literature and Film Studies from the University of California, Berkeley.


Ineke Deserno
  • Monash University, Melbourne
The value of business archives; the importance of the archives of large businesses in shaping cultural identity

The business environment in which multinational enterprises operate has changed. The unfolding of an economic globalization process which was enhanced by the reduction of trade barriers and the opening up of borders has facilitated business making worldwide and spurred a growing number of companies to internationalize their operations and invest beyond their home country borders . On the other hand existing multinationals have expanded the scope and span of their operations globally by opening new operations in other countries, and/or by broadening their types of products or services. Consequently, the impact of multinational enterprises on people around the world has grown as these agents of economic globalization reach into the life of domestic societies. Naturally those affected by multinationals´ operations request more information from the company be it in their capacity as consumers of those companies' products, employees, investors, regulators, or as part of communities in which the firm operates and whose livelihood might be affected by social, economic impact from the firm's operations.

The archives of multinationals are of great historical and social value. They play an essential role in the formation of corporate memory. At the same time however they are part of the collective memory of our time and provide essential information on our current culture and society. The archives of multinationals have a role in shaping individual, group and society's identity. As much of the power exercised in society is no longer concentrated in the government, scholars argue for a public right of access to the archives of multinational companies. Some multinationals have opened up their archives to the public, and established archives facilities. From a review of the websites of multinationals, it appears that in particular the companies that have been in negative publicity because of events that happened in the past - for example the use of forced labour in second world war - have opened up their archives to the public to re-establish trust and confidence in the multinational´s operations.

The proposed session will explore the impact of multinational enterprises on society; the value of international business archives for society; and the role archives play in supporting transparency and accountability of multinational companies.

Ineke Deserno is an archives and records management professional. She holds a masters degree of the Radboud University in the Netherlands, followed by post graduate education at the School for Information Management in the Hague, Netherlands. She also completed a post graduate certificate in records management at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. She has over 15 years of professional experience in international organisations. Up to November 2005 she was the Head Records and Archives at the World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva, Switzerland. Previous positions included Project Manager for the implementation of an electronic document management system at the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in Lausanne, Switzerland and Electronic Records Archivist at the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Geneva, Switzerland. She is currently undertaking a PhD study at the Monash University, Melbourne, Australia and advices organisations on their records and information management programs.


Dr Mareike Menne
  • Universität Stuttgart, Germany
Archives, Power, Knowledge

The Graduate Research Programme 'Archives, Power, and Knowledge. Organising, Controlling, and Destroying Stored Knowledge from Antiquity to the Present' was established in 2005 by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) at the Department of History at Bielefeld University. We aim for a cross-epochal, cross-cultural and comparatistic investigation of the role of archives. Drawing on an extended meaning of the term 'archive' (Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault), it is taken to describe not only institutional collections of records, but libraries, museums and semi-, sub- or counter-institutional stores of knowledge, as well.

The proposed talk gives an introduction into the research programme and the modifications during the last two years concerning the effective and operative construction of knowledge on social history, the destroying, reconstruction, and invention of knowledge. From early modern times on archives develop as simulacra and creators of social reality, and the invented, but nevertheless operative knowledge, serves as a fundament, on which we as historians are able to invent historical cycles, intra- and intercultural hierarchies based on knowledge as well as an abstract symbol system, which is the representation of the archive's simulacra. So Archives constitute power-knowledge by and based on the production of simulacra. Consequently, we do not only live in simulacra build by postmodern media, but also in simulacra that create our historical identity and substitute of reality. The lecture will be guided by the following questions:

  • What and whom do archives substitute?
  • How does this substitute come to meaningful power?
  • How does power operate in its relation to knowledge?
  • What is the impact of this process on historical cycles and the narration of social history?

The questions will be dealt with drawing on empirical works and topics of the graduate research programme, e.g. the early modern and modern period: state building in the early modern age, intercultural discourses in stores of knowledge (Europe and China), archives and the administration, the imaginary and symbolic corpus of archives.

Mareike Menne
2002 - Magistra Artium in Early Modern and Modern History, Cultural Anthropology and Media Studies at Paderborn University, Germany
Dr. Mareike Menne is currently an Assistant at Stuttgart University, Institute of History. She completed her PhD at Paderborn University in 2005 and was a Lecturer in Cultural Anthropology and History at the same institution from 2003-2007. Between 2006-2007 she held a Postdoc Scholarship at DFG graduate school, Bielefeld University, Germany.