Subjectivity and Methodology in the Arch‘I’ve

This article explores methodologies from the fields of library archival science, human geography, composition and rhetoric, and established editorial practices in English studies. By elaborating on the role of a researcher’s subjectivity in archival creation, this work expands the conversation regarding methodology and archives, especially how archives present us with new ways of seeing and making narratives during the editorial decision-making involved in their creation. Writing about my own experience, I privilege the researcher’s point of view with a narrative about my construction of a digital archive. With archival research, we should promote the revelation of methods and methodology to shape the expectations of our scholarship to include such discussions and consider how metacommentary—through explication of methods and methodology—enriches the research process. This article offers an affective methodology of archival work through an exploration of theory, the research narrative, and a pedagogical narrative. I also address the paradox of destruction and preservation in an archive and how embodied pedagogy both extends and complements archival inquiry