The readings this week shed a heavy load on the harsh realities facing archivist; analysis, classification and distribution of knowledge and information. All the readings made their unique points yet one in particularly triggered memories of collecting, organizing, labeling my own historical records.
In “The Order of Things…”, Foucault, stresses some key reminders about the world of ordering, classifying and naming things. He speaks of “aphasiacs”, a person who has had a brain injury and as a result has impaired language and can not read or write nor recognize order of things. Foucault’s comparison on a culture who has lost it’s language can be tormented in the same fashion as brain injured (stroke) person who has lost all language, reading and writing abilities. He found it suspicious and comical that Borge’s idea of ordering things was not just “linking together things that are inappropriate” (preface xvii), but that there was “no
law or geometry, of the heteroclite” (common locus) when arranging or placing them into groupings. This practice by Borge was futile and pointless according to Foucault.
I could not help but to feel a sense of relief that someone put my frustrations into perfect metaphors. Language and origin has always been of great interest to my personal research. A lost language is a big puzzle when attempting to preserve or rediscover secret or destroyed knowledge. As Foucault states perfectly, I have experienced that feeling of a “loss of what is common to place and name.” (preface xix)
I was not surprised to discover just how brutal and difficult it was to practice and as a principle, in “Disrespect the Fonds, Rethinking Arrangement and Description in Born-Digital Archives,” by Jefferson Bailey.
Dechein termed the act of arranging materials as, “brutal manipulations”, I call it simply language and culture manipulation. As language and meaningful context disappeared, so did the origins of old records and their importance of being properly placed. For archivist with the daunting task and deep work of deciding what stays and what goes, I am wondering what is the hope for future generations who seek to reconnect with lost information–and build new connections to culture, language, objects, that have been misrepresented by racially biased library infrastructure? Can I be hopeful and optimistic about digital archiving and the new data being collected in today’s media practices?
I feel like an “aphasiac” sometimes too when it comes to connecting to the past. How can archivist ensure info takes it’s rightful place next to objects and things– “next to and also opposite of each other” ? (Foucault)
It seems the evolution of archiving during the early 19th and 20th centuries, inspired archivist and librarians to innovate clever ways of organizing. Frustratingly they would arrange, rearrange, and then adopt newer ordering and classifying systems to set in place– only to repeat and improve as new technology and massive data sets demands it.
Thanks, Shonda, for highlighting the important role that language plays in shaping our classification systems — and for noting how the politics of our language (especially in regard to race, sexual orientation, etc.) reveals itself in our orderings of the world.