What concepts, ideas and examples from this text contribute to the theory and practice of archive ethnography? In the piece, I liked how the author combines the concepts of both Stoler (2009) and Trouillot (1995) by encouraging scholars to read along the grain and across it. Citing Trouillot (1995, p.
What is the main argument, narrative, or e/affect?Zeitlyn (2012) reviews literature that defines the archive and examines its different roles in maintaining systems of power. The author analyzes works that view the archive as instruments of hegemonic power, as instruments of subversion, as a liminal phase between memory and forgetting, as a form of repression, and as a memory.
Zietlyn (2012) builds on the concepts of power, positionality, and coloniality throughout the archival process, drawing from Foucault and Derrida. Historically, archives have been used by colonial forces to document narratives through their own lenses and in order to serve colonial purposes.
Zeitlyn identifies Derrida and Foucault as key starting points for understanding archives—as hegemonic devices that shape modes of colonization and control citizens’ ways of thinking but can also be read subversively. Power is exercised through the determination of what is included in the archival record and validation of certain representations through appraisal, selection, organization, and cataloging. However, subaltern voices can be drawn out of archives through counter-readings along and across the archival grain.
Zeitlyn's article was certainly a stimulating one, since the piece raised a number of questions that we as anthropologists have to deal with, both in terms of how we engage with the 'field' as well as archiving the 'data' that we draw from the said engagement. Archives themselves are not 'neutral' repositories of human events but rather are part and parcel of the politics of power, memory and knowledge that the past, present and future are entangled in.
Zeitlin (2012) draws on historical and contemporary literature to describe different ways of understanding archives: their historical and contemporary roles in the society and their use in anthropological research. In the beginning of this article, Zeitlin quotes works of Foucault who described “the archive” as “an expression of governmental control of its subjects” (p. 462) in which governments act as “gatekeepers” who select “which items are archived and which are condemned to oblivion” (p. 463).
Zeitlin’s review is valuable for my research of obstetric violence. While the term “obstetric violence” is relatively new (it was coined during the protest against “Violencia obstetrica” in Latin America over the last several years), the issue of mistreatment of women during childbirth and gynecologic care had been ubiquitous since the conception of the discipline of gynecology. Still, since mistreatment of women during childbirth has been normalized in many parts of the world, it is difficult to find evidence documenting the phenomenon.
The text points out the oversaturation of the concept of Archives. They argue that “too many uses and meanings are being loaded onto the term” making conceptual and practical use disordered and siloed. Two examples are referring to archives as memory and as the internet. The author offers two new models to metaphorically view archives and the practice of archiving through which contributing to theory and practice.
Zeitlyn, D. (2012). “Anthropology in and of the Archives: Possible Futures and Contingent Pasts. Archives as Anthropological Surrogates.” Annual Review of Anthropology 41:1, 461-480. https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev-anthro-092611-145721 pdf
David Zeitlyn is a Professor from the University of Oxford’s School of anthropology and museum ethnography as well as the institute of social and cultural anthropology. They have worked in Mambila in Cameroon since 1985. Topics of interest include religion, sociolinguistics, and political systems.
