Radical Archives – Question 1

Archives are, by their nature, conservative. Archives are about looking back, and they attempt to preserve a record of the past. The word “radical” derives from the Latin, radix, or root. In an etymological sense, then, archives could be said to be radical in that they support and enable those who are searching for the roots of today’s realities. More commonly, however, radical is thought of as the expression of extreme ideas through words or actions, a challenging of the status quo, and the opposite of conservative. Archives are rarely seen as radical in this sense. The reality is that all archives function within resource-constrained environments. When resources are constrained, decisions must be made about what can be collected, how those materials support other areas of the organization, what can be properly preserved, what can be made available, under what conditions, and to whom. Most typically, these decisions reflect the prevailing power structures in society.

A radical archive is a digital or physical repository that holds evidentiary content that supports political or social reform or activism. It often represents the voice of concerned citizens or organizations who desire to hold leadership accountable for its actions and to express opinions about societal issues. It can also assemble content that is secretive or illicit, or include formative documents that communicate the workings of a social movement. These archives can be one-sided, but when hosted by cultural or research institutions, rather than by the originating person or organization, the attempt is to be unbiased. For an institutional archive to serve as a neutral custodian of radical content can be political in itself, but such an archive can also provide a more robust corpus of records of events and viewpoints that may otherwise go undocumented.

All archives have the potential to be radical. The essence of being an archive that is or is becoming “radical” relates to the origin of the word “radical” itself; that which is “radical” originates from the root. One can speak of “radical archives” as such in many senses, but an archive’s commitment to change needs to originate from somewhere in particular; being “radical” in an archival sense means that the process of change or redefinition starts at some root. An archive may be “radical” in the way it was formed or collected, through the intentional acts of one or more individuals concerned with ensuring access to the memory of specific lived experiences. It also may be radical in the way its stewards choose to undertake their work—through the application, rediscovery of, or return to core principles in terms of professional knowledge and values, political ideals, and so forth. Archives also have the opportunity to continue their radicalization by rediscovering, understanding, and reconnecting with their roots.

While I have heard the terms “radical archives” and “radical archiving” with increasing frequency in archival discourse, I have never seen “radical” clearly defined in this context. Because of this, I have come to understand “radical archives” quite broadly, as any practice, record, documentation, or collection that challenges archival traditions or standards.