On archives, part 1

As I am now starting to write up my methodology chapter, I have been gathering articles and books on archival research. While reading through Maria Tamboukou's remarkable 2014 article on the epistolary archive of Dora Carrington, I came across the following words from Caroline Steedman, which have not left my mind since:

"[Y]ou find nothing in the Archive but stories caught half way through: the middle of things: discontinuities." 

(p.45)

These discontinuities, these absences and gaps haunt the journal extracts making up the vast part of my very own source material. Steedman's almost poetical description of what I often felt was frustrating and tedious and challenging can almost reconcile me with hours of guesswork and searching for answers in piles of crumbling paper.

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Tambokou, M. (2014): Archival research: unravelling space/time/matter entanglements and fragments. Qualitative Research, Vol. 14(5), 617­–633.

Steedman, C. (2001). Dust. Manchester: Manchester University Press.

Mapping change

The website myafricanow.com has compiled a variety of maps of the African continent showing the political and economic situation in Africa from before colonisation and since. The collection is an excellent visual representation of the changes on the continent in the last 200 years.

Africa before colonisation

Africa in 1910

African National independence

(all images from: http://www.myafricanow.com/map-of-africa-before-colonisation/)