Behind the Scenes Look at Archives and the Reality of Limited Access

To many researchers and scholars, archives can be associated to countless hours of research and miles and miles of microfilm. To Antoinette Burton and other scholars, archives go beyond the physical documents. In Burton’s Archive Stories, a series of essays were written to expose the true nature of archives. Within each archive there is a story of its creation and progression as a public, records-holding facility. Through the narrative of progression, some writers describe archives as being influenced and succumbed by the government of that nation. From varying political beliefs to protecting individuals in government, archives have been subject to the ups and downs of current politics. In turn, archivists have even related current events and political beliefs to their archival practices in terms of documentation and research access. As a result of the political influence on archives, as described by the writers, the issue of limited access to many records has been noticed and experienced. As both an obstacle and a frustration, limited access has only furthered the confusion toward archives and archival practices.

As described in most of the essays in Archive Stories, limited access to various records in archives has influenced how researchers and scholars have researched. In some archives, access to documents is limited as a result of censorship. During Jeff Sahadeo’s experience with the archives in Uzbekistan, access to archives meant waiting weeks until a form detailing his research topic was accepted and filed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In another instance, Helena Pohlandt-McCormick had to consider the archives in South Africa as incomplete and manipulated by the apartheid government of the time. Even archivists in South Africa played a role as “guardians” of the archives, making it nearly impossible to gain access to certain records that may reveal certain injustices and crimes.

In other archives, limited access is a result of political officials and movements attempting to re-write and legitimize their country’s history. During Durba Ghosh’s experience at the archives in India, archivists found it difficult to accept her research topic – defining the history of interracial relationships between Indians and Britons during colonial times in India. Ghosh faced another hurdle when the documents she needed were never processed by archivists as a result of their sexual, interracial content. From the warnings expressed by the archivists to the difficulty of researching, Ghosh concludes that these various efforts were a result of archivists and others in India trying to keep their history “clean.” By trying to prevent this “unsavory” aspect of India’s history becoming too publicized, archivists have found ways to minimize the interest and research of certain topics.

According to the essays in Archive Stories, access to archives and their records is harder than it seems. To researchers like Sahadeo, Pohlandt-McCormick, and Ghosh, access to archival records has been limited and often hard to come by. Archives have been influenced by various political and national-related issues. To many, these influences have proven to be detrimental to the accessibility of a nation’s actual history to the public.