Archivists for Memory: A Theoretical Study on Archives and Memory
Authors:
- Donghee SinnDSDonghee Sinn
- You-Seung KimYKYou-Seung Kim
- 29 February 2016
- journal article
- Published by Korean Society of Archives and Records Management in Journal of Korean Society of Archives and Records Management
- Vol. 16 (1) , 41-59
Abstract
Archivists for Memory: A Theoretical Study on Archives and Memory Memory;Social Memory;Collective Memory;Records;Archives;Archivists for Memory; In archival discourse, social memory has been discussed for some time. Despite this, however, theoretical studies have not been prolific at all in the Korean archival community. Many Western scholars have argued that archivists should consider memory rather than records for archival preservation because the inclusiveness of the former will fill the gaps in the latter. Social memory that is shared and transmitted across generations in society would include the stories of marginalized groups of people who are often neglected in official documents. Archivists can reconstruct the diverse narratives of a variety of social groups based on social memory, and this would be their social responsibility. In this sense, it is archivists who exercise power regarding how history will be written in the future because they determine what would be preserved in archives: mainstream culture with official records or a broader spectrum of diverse stories of people in society. From this perspective, this paper intends to understand how memory is discussed in archival discourse and to review how archives and history are associated with memory in theories and practices.Keywords
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