Epistemologies of the Archive: Toward a Critique of Archival Reason

This article explores epistemological bases for debates over the nature of archival research and practice, and argues that the lens of historical epistemology helps us best understand the critiques of the so-called “archival turn” as well as continued interest in archives among the public. Close reading of the rise of “scientific” history in the nineteenth century and modern archival practice, as articulated in early twentieth-century archival manuals, offers a new theorization of principles like provenance, respect des fonds, and custody, as well as historians’ “archive stories,” as part of an overarching though usually unspoken epistemology of archives rooted in intellectual project of the German philosopher Wilhelm Dilthey to create an epistemological foundation of the human sciences. Following this line of inquiry, it suggests that we can reconceptualize the rise of archival research, the development of the modern archival profession, and the critiques of these trends through the so-called “archival turn” and the post-custodial era of archival practice as shifts that were not just methodological in character but also epistemological. Ultimately, approaching the history of archives through the framework of epistemology helps us make sense of new critiques and continued interest in archives. Despite a growing chorus of acknowledgement of archives’ constructed nature, the instinct that documents provide access to the past with some kind of evidentiary value leads toward the value imbued into archives by professionals and the public alike and their continual contestation.