The International Anarchist Archives: A Report on Conditions and a Proposal for Action

Abstract

Historians spend great amounts of time searching for a flake or fragment of past that will illuminate a story or provide evidence of someone thought or did. Because historians encounter past through these collections, themselves hold great sway over histories are written. In this way, influence narratives which give our lives meaning, impacting past is remembered and even contemporary identities are formed. Yet, archival collections are often found lacking; particularly when it comes to material that informs groups who stood outside mainstream or elite sectors of society. This has important implications for both researchers and activists. As Steve Lubar, a scholar at Smithsonian National Museum of American History, comments, we must think of as active, not passive, as sites of power, not as recorders of power. Archives don't simply record work of culture; they do work of culture.1Silence in archive impacts not only researchers but also activists, organizers, and revolutionaries involved with ongoing struggles. Francis Blouin and William Rosenburg assert that can affect not only how past is shaped and represented but it is linked to future... help to structure (or 'write') future will be like.2 Since French Revolution, have also played an important role in centralizing governmental power and shaping citizens' ties to nation-states and economic systems. Blouin and Rosenburg argue that, what goes on in an archive reflects individuals, institutions, states, and societies imagine themselves to have been, as well as they imagine themselves becoming. It is therefore no wonder that groups who stand in active opposition to state and capitalism have received marginal coverage in mainstream archival records and have been relegated to a subaltern position on periphery of public memory.4To understand significance of this problem, one must understand political nature of and history in general. In order to shape history in a way that benefits their own narrative, states don't need to cover anything up as much as exclude it from conversation. As Blouin and Rosenburg point out, the ways in which records are acquired, appraised, organized, and cataloged clearly help to determine historians and others will be able to explore about past and how, consequently, past can be 'produced.'5 The preservation of material produced by radical groups is particularly illustrative of this point. For example, anyone familiar with groups knows quite well volume, diversity and creativity of their cultural production. However, due to underfunding and absence of produced materials in majority of state and public archives, very little material created by anarchists has ever been preserved or made available to researchers. This situation limits historians' ability to research history and thus to fully understand cultural and historic impact of movement; additionally it hinders contemporary radical critique, identity formation, and tactical evolution.ANARCHIST ARCHIVESIn context of movement, demonstrate both negative implications of power as evidenced by exclusion of materials from mainstream and self-affirming potential of community-based archival projects which preserve materials. A number of independent anarchist archives began as personal collections of activists and others were formed as community members came forward with a desire to preserve local history. The majority of these volunteer exist outside of traditional institutions or structures of knowledge production. In following pages I will report on general characteristics and status of a number of these archives. …