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- Title
The Archive as a Social World.
- Authors
Mayrl, Damon; Wilson, Nicholas Hoover
- Abstract
Historical scholars often adopt a solitary ethic, conceiving of their work as the product of a lonely and isolated individual toiling away in a dusty archive. In this article, we assess the validity of this ethic by examining the actual practice of archival research. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with practicing historical sociologists, we reveal that the solitary ethic is largely illusory, and that, instead, the archive is in fact a robustly social world. We identify two core sets of social relationships in the archive—relationships with the archivist and with the archival community—that shape the historical sociologist's experience in the archive. We further show that historical sociologists mobilize these interactions to solve concrete research problems in the archive. We thus argue that the archive's social character should be understood as a methodological opportunity for historical sociologists, allowing them to maximize and extend their research by inspiring creative research strategies.
- Subjects
ARCHIVES; SEMI-structured interviews; ARCHIVISTS; ARCHIVAL research; SOCIAL facts
- Publication
Qualitative Sociology, 2020, Vol 43, Issue 3, p407
- ISSN
0162-0436
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1007/s11133-020-09462-z