Archivo y agencia social

Some critical analyses have stripped archives of the solidity that would characterize them as "reservoirs" of documents, instead highlighting their volatile and open nature (Derrida, Foucault, de Certau). First, I propose a critical approach to the idea of the archive, with the aim of questioning both its very constitution within the framework of a given institution and also highlighting the work of selecting and trimming the documentary materials it preserves. Second, I will appeal to the concept of "social agency" to explain the intervention that the archive makes possible in society. Finally, I will analyze two current examples of archives that challenge the traditional definition, demonstrating their constituted nature and, at the same time, their potential as political tools for social intervention. The "Archivo de la Memoria Trans" and and the "Archivo Biográfico Familiar de las Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo" will be analyzed as cases that challenge temporal distance and could be characterized as "archives of the present."

Appeal · Constitution · Institution · Politics · Argentine historical studies · Indigenous Cultures and History · Memory, violence, and history