Intertextuality in the Archives introduction Archival science is a contextual science. However, defining what context is and how it can be represented in relation to individual records, archival aggregations, and archives as wholes of records and relationships, continues to be a subject of debate among archival scholars. The notion of context itself, independently of the complexity of the object it characterizes, poses an epistemological dilemma, which literary theorist Jonathan Culler described as follows: "Meaning is context-bound, but context is boundless. There is no limit in principle to what might be included in a given context [and] any attempt to codify context can always be grafted onto the context it sought to describe, yielding a new context which escapes the previous formulation" (Culler, 1982, cited in MacNeil, 2004, p. 200). This contribution begins with a review of various attempts made by different archival schools of thought to frame the "problem of context," from traditional understandings to more recent interpretations of this key concept. It will then focus on the "documentary context," which modern conceptualizations of diplomatics - the centuries-old "science of the diploma" (Duranti, 1989) from which archival science derived - discuss in relation to a specific contextual link among records participating in the same activity, known as "archival bond" (Duranti, 1997). The notion of archival bond, with its characteristics of naturalness, determinateness, necessity, originality, and incrementality, encapsulates the essential properties of a record according to a long-established archival tradition. By borrowing from other disciplines, such as organizational studies, linguistics and textual studies, the authors will provide insights that point to an expanded and more dynamic view of text-context relationships, a view which better aligns with contemporary archival paradigms invoking constructivist and situated approaches. Rhetorical Genre Studies (RGS), in particular, offers a set of concepts and analytical tools that shed light on the social context of records creation and use, and on the interactions among texts, activities, and agents taking place when we enact records to accomplish our work. The authors will argue that the notions of intertextuality (Devitt, 1991) and intertext (Christensen, 2016), as reinterpreted by genre scholars following an intellectual tradition that has its roots in early 20th century's semiotics, are especially suited to enrich our understanding of collaborative actions, and the official and unofficial texts that are the outcome and means of such actions. By looking at intertextual relationships in the archives, archivists are able to develop an appreciation for the mechanisms involved in the choices made by record creators and users, an appreciation that in turn elucidates context as a situated construct. fiorella foscarini and juan ilerbaig 177

Periodiekviewer Koninklijke Vereniging van Archivarissen

Jaarboeken Stichting Archiefpublicaties | 2017 | | pagina 90