Högre seminarium: Samuel Edquist (MiUN) om Archival twists and turns

Samuel Edquist presenterar ett bokkapitel om samtida akademiska arkivdiskurser som ska ingå i boken History and Archival Science: Interdisciplinary Relations in Sweden, 1880–2024 (författad även av Emma Pihl Skoog och Maria Cavallin-Aijmer). Abstract finns nedan. Seminariet ordnas i samarbete med det CIRCUS-finansierade forskarnätverket REPLY.

Samuel Edquist är professor i historia vid Mittuniversitetet och tidigare arkivvetare på Södertörns högskola och vid Uppsala universitet, Kapitlets abstract nedan:

Samuel Edquist, "Archival twists and turns: archival discourses in Swedish academia, 1990–2024"

The chapter examines archival discourse across a wide range of Swedish humanities and social science disciplines over the last 30 years, in the wake of what has often been called the “archival turn”. Thanks to a broader empirical basis, the investigation adds new knowledge about how archives, in both metaphorical and concrete senses, are discussed and conceptualised in contemporary academia. The chapter uncovers a multifaceted picture in the Swedish case. The often-discussed divide between archival science and the broader humanities is evident, but there are also significant differences across different archival turns, largely depending on discipline. While there has been a remarkable absence of newer archival conceptions in both Swedish history and archival science, which differs from many other countries, the archival turns are more pronounced in other disciplines, such as comparative literature and media studies. The results are discussed in relation to theories of epistemic cultures and boundary work in academia. It is argued that the fragmentation of archival discourses in academia should be followed by a discussion of how to foster more truly interdisciplinary archival research.