Rethinking the archive through the making of Memorja : an oral, sound and visual archive

Abstract

Historically, state archives have been responsible for preserving and making accessible an unceasingly growing corpus of official documentation which national historcial memory has been reconstructed in each country. Coupled with this role of repositiories of 'national history' - which implies facilitating the construction of, as well as repoducing, a collective sense of homogenous national identity, archives have been instrumental in consolidating and legitimising established structed of power, be they colonial, national and post-colonial. They have held a signigicant role in promoting the 'elements of cultural homogeneity', which included a chronicle and a plethora of traditions, value systems, ethinc and cultural symbols, and other representations - by functioning as the central memory 'hard disc' of the nation-state. Not suprisingly, such national repositiories have been considered - sometimes taken to task - as hegemonic instruments, utilised by the state for the consolidation of authority in civil society specifically; and as institutions guarding officially endorsed records si viutak for the forging of ''Monumental History'', as has been dubbed by Michael Herzfeld. This is in contrast to what the same author terms ''social-time history'', which we regards as having always been presnet albeit in a liminal position.