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Trusting Records in a Postmodern World

Underpinning the archival profession's commitment to the protection of records as reliable and authentic evidence of action is a philosophical ideal of truth, whose roots can be traced back to the ideas of John Locke and others concerning the relationship between probability and evidence. Out of these ideas there emerged a set of inferences and generalizations about what makes a record reliable and authentic, which were absorbed into, and remain firmly embedded in, modern archival theory and methodology. The validity of these inferences and generalizations has been challenged by postmodern thinkers who point out that such inferences and generalizations privilege a particular conception of the relationship between records and the world, to the exclusion of alternative ways of looking at that relationship. Postmodern theory serves to remind archivists that reliability and authenticity are historical constructs, not eternal verities, and need to be revisited as new ways of looking at the relationship between records and the world present themselves. RESUME La responsabilite de la profession archivistique de proteger des documents d'archives fiables et pouvant servir de temoignages authentiques est fondee sur une vision ideale et philosophique de la verite, laquelle tire ses racines des idees de John Locke et autres concernant les relations entre probabilite et evidence. Ont emerge de ces idees des series de deductions et de generalisations a propos de ce qui rend un document d'archive fiable et authentique qui furent integrees et restent enchessees fermement dans la theorie et la methodologie de l'archivistique moderne. La validite de ces deductions et generalisations a ete remise en question par les penseurs post-modernes qui ont demontre qu'elles privilegient une conception particuliere de relation entre les documents d'archives et le monde a l'exclusion de toute autre. La theorie post-moderne doit servir a rappeler aux archivistes que la fiabilite et l'authenticite sont des constructions historiques et non des verites eternelles et qu'elles doivent etre revues alors que des nouvelles facons de voir la relation entre les documents d'archives et le monde emergent.