Project Details
Projekt
GRK 1049: Archives, Power and Knowledge - Organising, Controlling and Destroying Stored Knowledge from Antiquity to the Present
Subject Area
History
Term
from 2005 to 2009
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 375535
In recent years the release of files has become a highly explosive topic, both in terms of academic politics as well as politics in general.Some of the most intense debates in recent times, such as the controversy about the Wehrmacht, Nazi gold in Switzerland or the construction of biographies after the National Socialist era, have been triggered by newly released or newly interpreted archival material. With few exceptions, the actual repository of the files and its organisational structure, namely the archive, has not been the subject of in-depth academic attention, particularly so with regard to historians, even though their work is largely based upon the use of archives.The use of the term archive in current discussions, beyond the trend of Erinnerungskultur (culture of memory) and Wissenskultur (culture of knowledge), is also due to the momentary shift of the character of archives. This is reflected in the change of emphasis from preservation to flow of data, from localisation in one particular area to a wider, almost arbitrary availability, from the process of archiving to navigating. This development is alternately condemned as the climax of de-sensualisation in the age of information technology, or is celebrated as the democratised, borderless access to data for everyone. However, the current situation, while problematic, nevertheless makes the archive an interesting subject in itself. The new digital stores that promised to convert the vertical and hierarchical order of knowledge into a more horizontal and democratic shape have been proved to be untenable, as far as the preservation and transmission of saved data is concerned. A society that works primarily with memory machinery runs the risk of losing its memory if a malfunction of storage facilities occurs.The Research Training Group seizes upon the current interest in historical organisation of archival knowledge and attempts to investigate it along three lines of inquiry: Firstly, the collection, stabilisation and use of archiveable and archived material; secondly, the processes of inclusion and exclusion which rule the archival process, namely the selection of archived material and the control of its use; thirdly, the misuse, destruction and forgery of archived material.
DFG Programme
Research Training Groups
Applicant Institution
Universität Bielefeld
Spokesperson
Professorin Dr. Martina Kessel, since 4/2005
