ABSTRACT
This chapter explores how evidential and affective values are manifested in programmes of public history, drawing on cases studies of three large-scale archival projects in the north of England. It suggests that the praxis of these activities generates dissonance with the authorised archival discourse but does not absolutely displace it or lead to its conscious rejection. The dissonance is mitigated by repurposing traditional principles such as truth and neutrality in ways that reassert and protect established ways of knowing about archives. The idea of diverse subjectivities, as theorised in critical approaches, is made safe by reaffirming the necessity of an authorised way of knowing about archives within an evidential framework. In order to see the significance that archives embody (i.e., the relationship between the object and the past) an individual must have access to the dominant orientation. This orientation determines how the object is presented and interpreted, and how it can be activated for public use. Differently oriented individuals and communities who ascribe values to materials, places or ideas which are not acknowledged by the discourse are excluded. This leads practitioners and communities to misapprehend one another’s archival modus operandi, limiting public history practices.
