Historians and Archives: The history discipline and archival theory in Sweden, 1880–2020

The aim of the project is to gain deeper understanding of the relations between the academic disciplines of history and archival science, 1880–2020. What role has archives had for the professional identities of academic historians over time? To what extent and how has academic research (not least in history) been a major concern for archival science?

Since the core in archival theory focusses on the creation process of records, rather than already formed archives, there is a general difference in perspective on what archives are and should be.The project lasts for three years and spans over two disciplines: history and archival science. It is divided into three substudies.

The first two focusses on knowledge production in the history discipline and in archival science, respectively.

In the third substudy, the focus is on the last three to four decades, and here, both history and archival science are studied alongside other academic disciplines that have engaged on archives in partially new ways, within the so-called archival turn movement.The empirical studies will largely be made on academic periodicals in Sweden, with the theoretical preunderstanding that academic disciplines are constantly changing and characterised by boundary work towards other disciplines.

Apart from gaining new knowledge in the mutual disciplinary histories of history and archival science, the project aims at inspiring to increased intellectual crossbreeding between the disciplines.