On the Archive & Praxis

Like Prof. Alan Galey, my fieldwork space, the archive, is the seeming anti-thesis to the field (galeyinf1240.blogspot.ca/2013/10/week-6-follow-up-and-week-7-blogging.html). I anticipate for my research project to scour the archives of cultural institutions, publishing houses and newspapers across Beirut. In this space, I too hope to be surprised and illuminated (ibid). Yet in a sense, all of Beirut is my fieldwork space, since my research concerns a phenomenon whose history is inextricably tied to that of Lebanon’s ancient capital. The archives I will be visiting will take me from one end of Beirut to the other, as I examine the social and cultural networks of the print culture I am studying. In a sense, I will be physically retracing these relationships, crossing streets and climbing stairwells that many Shi’r’s poets once crossed and climbed in bygone times. Or, put another way, one can conceptualize the entirety of Beirut as one core component of the much larger and fluid Shi’r Archive. One can extend the parameters of that Archive even further, beyond Beirut; and imagine it stretching past the coast and over the mountains in all directions until it encompasses the entire world. For the Archive, in Derrida’s sense, is a totality far greater than any one repository can contain (Brothman, 1999). Hence, the Shi’r Archive includes not only the official repositories with cultural and other institutions, but also all the places the poets gathered; where each of them drank coffee or played as a child; the people they spoke to or the readers they inspired; and even perhaps the personal archive of a scholar in New York or Johannesburg that contains related materials.

Here, I have in mind the book A Prisoner in the Garden that I am currently reading in preparing my final research proposal, and that is about an archival exhibition in Johannesburg with the same name. This beautifully illustrated book by the Nelson Mandela Foundation documents that exhibition project, which was run by the Foundation’s Nelson Mandela Centre of Memory and Commemoration (with Verne Harris was the project manager). The following passage in particular is relevant to my discussion here:

“The very idea of the Nelson Mandela Centre of Memory and Commemoration suggests a Mandela Archive. But whereas a conventional archive has a single location and a finite number of documents, the Mandela Archive is an infinite one, located in innumerable places. It is also not confined to documents, but includes sites, landscapes, material objects, performances, photographs, artworks, stories and the memories of individuals.

“The list is endless, and the full scope of the Mandela Archive is difficult to comprehend. […] No listing of the Mandela Archive can, however, be considered complete or do more than suggest the enormity of its scope and complexity. […] The Mandela Archive connects to a host of other archives in powerful ways. While necessarily focusing on Mandela, it also embraces other elements of history of which he has become a symbol. […] Mandela’s personal history is also that of not only his close comrades, but all who identified with the struggles against apartheid, and is echoed in all the records they generated, in their many and varied forms.” (2005, 35-36)

This passage encourages us, like Derrida did, to think in new ways about the archive as a site of memory and scholarship. It also inspires thoughts about the complex and myriad connections between what things that may appear as disparate and unrelated at first, but are in fact ultimately connected. In studying social phenomena, however, we must draw the line somewhere, establishing the boundaries of our inquiry so that it is manageable. One cannot study all things at once. Yet it is important to remember that wherever that line is drawn, always there are connections, relationships, voices and facets that are left unaccounted for in any research project. I think that is a humbling but constructive idea to keep in mind as one undertakes research. (As an aside, the organization subsequently shortened its name to the Nelson Mandela Centre of Memory.)

On a slightly different note, one of my favourite articles about research, including fieldwork, concerns its potential to challenge scholars to confront their assumptions, and engage with the subject of their study (ibid). This well-known article was written by noted critical scholar, Patti Lather (1986). In it, she defines the concept of “research praxis” as she examines the methodological implications of critical theory. Lather’s article highlights the potential of field research, when designed critically, to advance emancipatory knowledge. One of my favourite parts of the article is the following:

“Reciprocity in research design is a matter of both intent and degree. Regarding intent, reciprocity has long been recognized as a valuable condition of research fieldwork, for it has been found to create conditions which generate rich data (Wax, 1952). Everhart (1977), for example, presents reciprocity as "an excellent data gathering technique" (p. 10) because the researcher moves from the status of stranger to friend and thus is able to gather personal knowledge from subjects more easily. […] I argue that we must go beyond the concern for more and better data to a concern for research as praxis. What I suggest is that we consciously use our research to help participants understand and change their situations.” (ibid, 263)

Hence, Lather is concerned with the democratization of the research process, and conducting fieldwork in a manner that empowers both scholar and, as applicable, research subjects. These research ideas interest me, as I continue developing my project and its methods.

References

Brothman, Brien. (Fall 1999). Declining Derrida: Integrity, Tensegrity, and the Preservation of         
         Archives from Deconstruction. Archivaria 48: 64-88.    

Lather, Patti. (Fall 1986). Research as Praxis. Harvard Educational Review 56(3): 257-278.    

Nelson Mandela Centre of Memory. (2005) A Prisoner in The Garden. New York, New York: 
          Viking Studio.