ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that a radical remaking of archival values has generated an alternative archival discourse, which draws on feminism, critical race theory, human rights advocacy, and approaches to social justice to develop new intellectual genealogies for archival practice. Exploring different strands of critical thought, it considers to what extent these ideas can be conceived as compatible or sympathetic with the evidential orthodoxy described in Chapter 2. It argues that new archival scholarship reflects a typology of values which are ascribed not by institutions and the state but through individual and communal encounters with archives. These values are primarily affective and social, centring people rather than records. They call upon notions of place, identity, agency, autonomy, and lived experience rather than evidence or authenticity as the basis for archival legitimacy. Analysis of fieldwork with an incipient community archive and of a participatory action research project are used to explore how the interplay of these values can be observed in practice.
