Beyond the Archives: Research As A Lived Process

Introduction

Kaplan's experience suggests, then, that how a researcher chooses a subject is a subject unto itself. (1)

"giving the game away" (1)

...connections woven through so many of our scholarly and persona lives that remain largely unarticulated. (1)

The collection on the whole addresses what inspires our work, what attracts us to our research subjects, how they attract us, and the role of serendipity, place, and cultural memory in making knowledge. (2)

Most important, they show why anyone would embark on research in the first place. For these writers, research is a meaningful collection process that has helped them better understand their own historically situated experience. It can even become an identity-forming, life-changing activity. (emphasis added, 2)

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Expanded Notions of the Archive: Including Family, Local, and Genealogical History

…an expanded conception of archives. Many of these researchers have used regional and familial archives for their data collection and analysis. Their work teaches the value of attending to how our family, social, and cultural history is intertwined with more traditional notions of history and culture. (3)

 …these essays show that researching family archives and local stories can and does lead to sustained scholarly work and contributes to new knowledge, both in and outside of academe. (3)

The intersection of the personal, cultural, and scholarly aspects of our lives emerged as an important new site for original scholarship among our contributors. (emphasis added, 3)

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Curiosity and Serendipity: Moving from a Chance Encounter to Scholarly Research

Experiences like Gold's instruct us that unless we pay serious attention to aspects of our lived experience that connect us with insight, intuition, and creativity, we might those out on many leads that can enrich our understanding of past and present, virtual and historical experiences. (4)

We consider genuine curiosity, a willingness to follow all possible leads, an openness to what one may encounter, and flexibility in revising research questions and the scope of a project to be key factors for conducting successful historical work. (5)

Thus, place as archive is another major lesson of research promoted by these contributors and their research experiences. (5)

Exploring a place and re-seeing a place as an archive teach the hands-on nature of research. This method of research is intricately linked with living, being present both mindfully and physically. (5)

Virtual, Historical, and Lived Experiences: Connecting the Past and the Present

Jacqueline Jones Royster theorizes that research subjects might serve as "teachers, mentors, [and] guides," aiding in a researcher's unrealized quest for "transformations" when confronting contemporary issues (278). In this sense, the resurrection of historical actors via research who are not family members can be as meaningful and transformative as learning more about family history. (6)

When authors like Birmingham disclose their engagement with their subjects whom they often "meet" only on paper, they admit the joyful human connections they have with their data, a phenomenon of research rarely articulated or made public. (7)

Hence, the process of discovering and writing about research subjects helps researchers better imagine the struggles and experiences of these research subjects shoe were--like all of us--shaped by and constrained by their respective cultures. (7)

Doing research helps us understand our subjects, of course, but it guides us to see--for better or worse--how the world works. (7)

We are convinced--and our chapters bear this out--that the most serious, committed, excellent historical research comes from choosing a subject to which we are personally drawn, whether through family artifacts, a chance encounter, a local news story, or some other fascination that sets us on a trail of discovery, curiosity, and intrigue. That personal connection can make all the difference in our scholarly pursuit: it brings the subject to life and makes us more likely to pursue hunches, follow leads, and spend extra time combing through archival materials than we would without a "personal attachment" (8).

As a collection, Beyond the Archives illustrates the importance of tapping into our passions, pursuing research subjects that attract our attention, and allowing creativity and intuition to enter the scholarly research process while broadening what "counts" as an archive. (9)

The Accidental Archivist (Gold)

In academia, one is in a perpetual liminal space. As soon as you answer a research question, you ask another, your growing body of expertise simply marking the expanding edge of your ignorance. Archival research especially exacerbates this condition. It's like putting together a jigsaw puzzle, except that you don't have a picture on the box for reference, there's more than one puzzle in the box, the picture keeps changing depending on how you fit the pieces together, and the pieces themselves change shape when your back is turned. Only slowly do the pieces begin to form a pattern. (15)

The process of doing archival research is largely organic. Though we may apply a critical lens or favor a particular theoretical approach, the basic methodology of archival research remains the same: read absolutely everything and try to make sense of what happened. It is a bottom-up process and messy as hell--and, more to the point, scary, requiring faith that something will be found, even if it's not what you first went looking for. (18)