ABSTRACT
This chapter begins by placing Avery Gordon’s statement on power alongside an excerpt of Jay Kyle Petersen’s oral history in the Arizona Queer Archives. Typically speaking, the archivist’s job is to collect, organize, and then prepare the archival record for future contributors and visitors to the archives, as well as for those who may never set foot within the physical archives. The chapter aims to trace the definitions and understandings of archives from their earliest modern iterations to more postmodern and queer variations of archival theory and practice. Since the 1898 publication of The Manual for the Arrangement and Description of Archives, the first internationally-accepted articulation of the codification, standardization, and professionalization of archival practices, many in the archival field have been taught to see archives as neutral and unwavering institutions of evidence. Institutional and governmental archives hold what may be considered “proper” records because of standardized practices even when those practices may be no longer relevant or effective.
