A guest blogpost from Paula Schnabel and Jannes Thode as part of the research exchange between the Bodleian Libraries and the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin
What is archival silence? Since the so-called “archival turn”, archives have become a subject of study on their own terms. While they had been seen as the ultimate bearers and providers of truth until recently, they now face increasing critical attention. The work of Foucault (1969) and Derrida (1995) drew more attention to the connection between archives and structures of knowledge and power. Archives are not simply the innocent collection of material – usually for administrative purposes – but are actively producing that material as documents and sources for historical events (Mbembe 2002, 20). Which material is regarded as preservable is connected to historical power. In this context, the concept of archival silence has gained new currency.
Michel-Rolph Trouillot, writing about the Haitian Revolution of 1791, was one of the first to theorise archival silence. In his Silencing the Past (1995), he claims that “history reveals itself only in the production of specific narratives” (Trouillot 1995, 25). Silences particularly occur in the making of narratives, but Trouillot distinguished three other moments: the moment of fact creation (the making of sources), the moment of fact assembly (the making of archives), and the moment of respective significance (the making of history) (Trouillot 1995, 26). Archival silences are thus predominantly the omissions and blurrings in the making of sources and their assembly through archival institutions, but also the gaps which (inevitably) happen in creating narratives. Since Trouillot, the issue of archival silence has been picked up by archivists (for instance Moss & Thomas 2021) and by artistic practice as well.
Post-structural and post-modernist critiques of the archive highlight the importance of individual interpretation and the fluidity of texts (Lane & Hill 2011, 8). Archives and the silences which occur in them are therefore not static and can be challenged and refigured through new archival sources, different narratives and interpretations. In this sense, silences are created, maintained and reproduced. Moreover, the new scholarship challenges the notion of the archivist as a “passive, invisible, disinterested, neutral” persona and portrays him/her instead as an active participant in the construction of the archive (ibid., 4). While the Jenkinsonian ideal of an archivist as passive and neutral remains dominant (particularly in continental Europe) and archivists themselves remain reluctant to acknowledge their active participation in the construction of the archive, new initiatives – particularly in the field of post-colonial Vergangenheitsbewältigung (the coming-to-terms with one’s own past) –have begun to transform traditional images of archivists (in the widest sense). IN_CONTEXT at the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin and We are our history at the Bodleian Library in Oxford are two such examples which rethink their own archival material and its digital presentation.
In their transnational cooperation and exchange these two initiatives challenge an often-overlooked aspect of historical research. In order to confront archival silences, it is crucial to become aware of our modes of fact assembly in different but connected archival institutions and how their structural assemblage form our historical narratives. Archival institutions are “centre[s] of interpretation” (Osborne 1999, 52) and thus possess their own strategies of acquisition, deposition and preservation. To bring different archival institutions into dialogue enables researchers, on the one hand, to expand their views on different collections and arrive at new insights. On the other hand, to reflect on power relations between archival institutions demonstrates how these institutions contribute unevenly to our historical narratives. For instance, archival material held in the India Office records of the British Library mirrors only the perspective of the British Indian government and its colonial relationship with India. As this relationship has a century-long history, archival material relating to India and held in Britain is by far the most condensed. If a historian is interested in British India, these are the main and dominant sources. However, different actors participated in colonialism in India (Arnold 2015). German-speaking actors for instance were collaborators in conquering India during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, as the German nation-state came into existence and began a colonial project of its own, it became increasingly hostile to the British Empire and supported anti-colonialism in India (to a certain degree).
While German political interest into the Indian subcontinent fluctuated over the course of time and peaking in the 1914-18 period, German-speaking scientists had already assumed important functions in the eighteenth-century conquer of the Indian subcontinent. Nathaniel Wallich (1786-1854) for instance, forged a wide-ranging network of botanists and natural scientists from Calcutta over Cape Town, to London and the German-speaking lands. The case of Wallich is crucial as it demonstrates how scattered archival material of German-speaking actors on the Indian subcontinent often is. As he was employed by the East India Company and later the superintendent of the Botanical Garden in Calcutta, he left much of his extensive correspondence there. Unfortunately, the letters are in a poor condition, which makes it necessary to turn to other relevant holdings. Besides the material held in the India Office and various scientific institutions in the United Kingdom, among them the Botanical Gardens in Kew, his correspondence partners’ legacies become particularly worthwhile to consult. Adelbert von Chamisso (1781-1838), a German Botanist, was one such correspondence partner, whose legacy is held in the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin and can be accessed online via Kalliope.
As can be seen by this example, the contribution of material relating to German participation in European colonialism, which is held in (German) archives and libraries, to dominant British narrtives about British India remains difficult for two reasons. First, German archives are not speaking directly about endeavours of German-speaking actors in overseas territories, which were not formally possessed by the German empire, thus being silent and difficult to access. It took a long time to uncover the network of botanists in different German archives. Second, even if we find the sources their impact on the dominant narrative is still influenced by the uneven power structure of different archival institutions. It is therefore essential to facilitate more cross-border reaching initiatives such as the cooperation of IN_CONTEXT and We are our History, and or our own project of MIDA (Modern India in German Archives). As a DFG-funded long-term project, we collect data from different archival institutions in a single database to help researchers finding material about India and Indo-German relations. With this database we attempt to challenge the dominant British narrative about colonial India and enable a new and more nuanced narrative about India’s colonial past and the myriads of influences between India and Germany.
German archives enable historians of modern India to discover fissures and disruptions of the dominant British colonial discourse and unearth marginalised voices. As Germans and Britons were competitors in the colonial game, marginalised actors were able to actively navigate between them and exert agency. Indian anti-colonial nationalists, for instance, were observed and partially prosecuted by British authorities, while they were supported by the German Foreign Office during the Great War and even later, in the Second World War. The freedom fighters were able to carve out of that cooperation what they needed for their struggle – funds for instance. This does not mean that German archives do not reflect a colonial view. Indeed, many German records are equally shaped by racist and supremacist views on the colonial “other”. After all, colonialism was a truly European project. Still, German archives offer numerous possibilities for new research on the colonial history of modern India and beyond.
Finally, silences are inherent in historical narratives. By highlighting one event another one is silenced. Silence per se is perhaps unavoidable but our choice which voices should be heard and how they are presented should be guided by ethical considerations. Instead of simply reproducing the voices of dominant actors, we should critically assess them and make other voices of competing dominant actors or marginalised subjects heard to disrupt and fissure the dominant narrative. Lastly, a remark of caution. Our objective should not just be the accumulation of archival material in different archival institutions, especially since this is not possible for all researchers. Moreover, some archives might never be accessible for Western researchers. Communities create their own archives to remember and tell the stories of their communities. They are important safe spaces to process their experiences and enable a way of healing. Especially in the context of colonial relationships, the attempt to access these community archives and publish research about them can create a new form of colonial exploitation.
Further reading:
Arnold, D., “Gobalization and Contingent Colonialism: Towards a transnational history of ‘British’ India,” in: Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History 16 (2), 2015
Foucault, M., L’archéologie du savoir (Paris 1969)
Derrida, J., Prenowitz, E., “Archive Fever: A Freudian Impression,” in: Diacritics 25 (2), 1995, pp. 9–63
Lane, V., Hill, J., “Defining archives. Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going? Situating the archive and the archivists,” in: Hill, J. (ed.), The Future of Archives and Recordkeeping. A Reader (London 2011)
Mbembe, A., “The Power of the Archive and its Limits,” in: Hamilton, C., Harris, V., Taylor, J., Pickover, M., Reid, G., Saleh, R. (eds), Refiguring the Archive (Cape Town 2002)
Osborne, T., “The ordinariness of the archive,” in: History of the Human Sciences 12 (2), 1999, pp- 51–64
Michael Moss & David Thomas (eds), Archival Silences. Missing, Lost and, Uncreated Archives (London, New York 2021)
Trouillot, M.R., Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History (Boston, MA 1995)
Author Biographies:
After completing a BA in history and South Asian studies at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Paula Schnabel has turned towards the subject of global history, finishing her master’s degree with a thesis on the global life of Austrian art historian Stella Kramrisch (1896-1993) who lived and worked in Vienna, Calcutta and Philadelphia.
After studying philosophy and area studies (with focus on South Asia) at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Jannes Thode has begun his PhD project on the dynamic structures of violence in colonial Bengal between 1757 and 1818.
Both are currently working for the MIDA project as research fellows and spend their time discussing about the connection of archives, power and knowledge.
