Accidentally on Purpose

Archives, pp. 323–336

Abstract

Abstract Usually to signal a collection of artefacts that ended up together in a format that was not intended to be permanent, the term ‘Accidental Archive’ is generally defined only in the broadest of brushstrokes and rarely problematized. Recordkeeping can be seen as a repressive act, silencing alternative stories of the past, but the discovery of an accidental archive may disrupt received narratives: a trunk collected from a seventeenth-century shipwreck, for instance, may allow alternative stories to rise to the surface. It is the accidental archive that has most disruptive potential, but this potential is disrupted by a lack of consensus regarding its nature. In this chapter, we aim to define the accidental archive that it may exist alongside and yet distinct from four other forms of archive with which it might easily be confused: the asserted, the unintentional, the incidental, and the invisible archive.

Authors 2

1. Nadine N. W. Akkerman Aachen English Literature

   Leiden University

   Affiliation as printed

   English Literature, Leiden University

2. Pete Langman
   Affiliation as printed

   Independent scholar