The unbearable lightness of participating? Revisiting the discourses of “participation” in archival literature
| Date | 09 March 2015 |
| Pages | 358-386 |
| Published date | 09 March 2015 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JD-01-2014-0012 |
| Author | Isto Huvila |
| Subject Matter | Library & information science,Records management & preservation,Document management |
The unbearable lightness
of participating? Revisiting
the discourses of “participation”
in archival literature
Isto Huvila
School of Business and Economics, Åbo Akademi University, Åbo, Finland
Abstract
Purpose –The purpose of this paper is to investigate how archivists, records managers and scholarly
literature in the field(s) analyse how “participation”is discussed in the context of archives and records
management, and to explore practical and theoretical implications of the disclosed discursive practices.
Design/methodology/approach –The analysis is based on a discourse analysis of a body of
archival literature and a sample of posts collected from the archival and records management
blogosphere.
Findings –The analysis shows that instead of discussing one notion of participation, the archival
science literature is referring to nine different and partly conflicting types of participation from three
broad perspectives: management, empowerment and technology. The discourses have also conflicting
ideas of the role of engagement and enthusiasm, and of that what do the different stakeholder
communities see as real options.
Research limitations/implications –The analysed material consists of a limited sample of mainly
English language texts that may not capture all the nuances of how participation is discussed in the
archival literature.
Practical implications –A better understanding of how different claims of the benefits and threats
endorsing “participation”in archives helps to develop effective and less contradictory forms of
collaboration between different stakeholders.
Originality/value –In spite of the popularity of the notion of “participation”, there little, especially
critical, research on how participation is conceptualised by archives professionals and researchers.
Keywords Participation, Records management, Archives, Archives 2.0, Participatory archives
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
“Participation”has become one of the central concepts in the recent professional
and academic archival literature (Cook, 2013), and even more so, in archives related
social media. Several authors including Theimer (2011a), Huvila (2008), Evans (2007),
Yakel (2011) and Shilton and Srinivasan (2007) have discussed various approaches to
“participation”in the context of archival work by introducing and exploring such
concepts as participatory archives, participatory appraisal and Archives 2.0. Without
elaborating a specific concept, participation with external communities and inst itutions
together with its practical, ethical and theoretical implications has been scrutinise d also
by, for instance, Gilliland (2012) and Zhang (2012). The readings of participation range
from perceiving it as a possibility to send feedback by email (Tató, 2012) to redefining
the roles of archivists and the public within existing archival institutions (Evans, 2007)
and acknowledging the de facto “archival”role of such digital repositories as YouTube
(Pietrobruno, 2012) or Facebook (Miller, 2011, p. 139). The number of examples of
how archives and archivists collaborate with different audiences leaves no doubt that
participation is an empirical phenomenon. At the same time, however, the variety of its
Journal of Documentation
Vol. 71 No. 2, 2015
pp. 358-386
©Emerald Group Publishing Limited
0022-0418
DOI 10.1108/JD-01-2014-0012
Received 20 January 2014
Revised 17 March 2014
Accepted 5 April 2014
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/0022-0418.htm
358
JDOC
71,2
forms and its connotations in the professional and academic discussion shows equally
irrefutably the discursive nature of “participation”and the profusion of how it is
conceptualised and practiced within the archival community.
In spite of the popularity of the notion and the obvious practical consequences of how
participation is defined in archival work, there are only few attempts to review the field
(e.g. Theimer, 2011c, b; Cook, 2013) and no critical research on how participation is
conceptualised by archives professionals and researchers. The aim of this study is first to
investigate how archivists, records managers and scholarly literature in the field(s) analyse
how “participation”is discussed in the context of archives and records management, and
second to explore practical and theoretical implications of the disclosed discursive
practices. Because of the overlap of especially theoretically oriented literature, the notions
archives management and records management are used interchangeably in the text.
The study is based on a discourse analysis of a body of archival literature retrieved from
LISA database (n¼185), and a sample of key posts (n¼49) gathered from the archival
and records management blogosphere. The discourse analytical approach of the study
draws on the discourse theory of Laclau and Mouffe (2001) and the notion of subdiscourse
of Foucault (2002/1969).
2. Literature review
Participation is a characteristic aspect of the contemporary digital practices (Mostmans
and Passel, 2010). It has become one of the defining phrases of the societal debate even
if there is a clear lack of consensus of its meaning and underpinnings (Huvila, 2012;
Jenkins, 2014). In the earlier literature, participation (as a generic notion) has been
discussed in a variety of contexts from societies (e.g. de Tocqueville, 1866) to arts and
culture (Carpentier, 2010), commons (Ostrom et al., 2002) and social exchange (e.g.
Mauss, 1925). The origins of the contemporary discussion of participation as a defining
principle of the “participatory culture”of the early twenty-first century is, however,
commonly attributed to Jenkins (Williams, 2011). Jenkins and colleagues characterise
participatory culture as of having low barriers to expression and engagement, strong
support for creating and sharing, informal mentorship, belief in that contributions
matter and a feeling of some degree of social connection (Jenkins et al., 2006; Jenkins,
2014). This particular understanding of participation as a cultural category is often
related to the notions of produsage (Bruns, 2008), crowdsourcing (Howe, 2006; Oomen
and Aroyo, 2011), prosumption (Toffler, 1970) and Web 2.0 (O’Reilly, 2005) even if the
making of parallels between these concepts is not entirely unproblematic (Chu, 2010).
Shirky (2010) makes a further remark that emphasises the particularity of the (Jenkinsian)
“participation”by emphasising that any culture needs to incorporate a degree of
participation to exist. Similarly to the notion of sharing in the context of Web 2.0
(John, 2012), “participatory culture”has redefined “participation”to denote a particular
set of “participatory”activities. A significant aspect of the remarks of both the
proponentsand critics of the notion is that they portrayparticipatory cultureas a relative
otherness with, as Williams (2011) notes, apparent links to subcultures and fandom.
A central premise of the particular type of “participation”in the archives and related
institutional settings is motivation. In simple terms all involved parties need to have
aspirations and incentives to participate (Westas, 2005). The predominant explanations
of the motivation of the users to participate have a tendency to explain the motivation
in individualistic, social, rational and emotional terms as an aspiration for opportunities
of social or material personal gain (e.g. Jafarinaimi, 2012; Smith-Yoshimura, 2012),
reciprocity (Pelaprat and Brown, 2012), fun and altruism (e.g. Oomen and Aroyo, 2011).
359
Unbearable
lightness of
participating
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