Documenting Collective Memory : an Analysis of the New Swedish Process Oriented Archive Description System

Abstract: In recent years we have seen a development within the archival tradition identified by some as a paradigm shift. The signifiers behind this shift are mirrored in the records continuum model - a model that then also reflects a wider socio-political understanding of the development of archival thinking. Hence this thesis intend to describe and analyse the current shift in archival description in Sweden – from allmänna arkivschemat to the implementation of a new description system based on organisational processes – using the records continuum model as its basis. By framing the thesis from the above perspective archival description becomes a very important tool to support a democratic process. Archival description can through its contextual quality become more or less true to the event, in some cases even entirely false. It is through the many layers of documentary links i.e. metadata that archival description has the potential to minimize the risk of rendering records not true to the event. The documentary links is what marks the record’s evidentiary qualities. It is also through this process that the work of the archivist/records manager gets inscribed in the record. Archival description thus is a tool of power and a tool that need to be under constant development. The change in system of how to describe records within Swedish national government agency archives has to be considered as the starting point to move towards a more coherent view of records that link records to the act and the people having interfered and used them throughout their existence. But it also has to be seen as a beginning to establish new manners, for how to conceptualise our democratic rights, when considering records and their creators i.e. accountability. The thesis is an attempt to make new paths emerge for future research around the process oriented description system in Sweden, and open up for questions relating to the improvement of Riksarkivet’s guidelines. Bearing in mind it is a theoretical attempt to raise questions and concerns and not an attempt to present practical solutions.