Using Archives to Contest Official Narratives of the Past

This paper will analyse the role of archives in constructing and contesting state sanctioned truth about past human rights violations. This question offers a productive intersection between research and practice. Instead of seeing the archive as a neutral repository of truth and memory, it can be understood as playing a role in constructing a partial truth and partial memory. Records are used in many contexts in ongoing struggles for justice and democracy. Thus, archives are not seen as empty spaces to be filled through a technical process of documentation, but as a spaces in which truths are formed and negotiated, living archives. The paper will address two key issues. Firstly, it will discuss methods employed by civil society organisations to get access to information that is hidden by vested repositories of power. Secondly, it will analyse how archival material is used to deconstruct official narratives and create new, alternative accounts of the past. Case studies from Israel (Zochrot), South Africa (South African History Archive), Argentina (Memoria Abierta) and the US (National Security Archives) will illustrate how records are used in an innovative way to contest state denial and flawed remedies.