Att skapa sin plats i historien : en studie i drivkrafterna bakom personarkivets uppkomst och överlevnad

The archivist Martin Grass defines personal archives as that they do not have to adapt to guidelines when it comes to the culling or preservation of the material, the submitting of the material to an archive is not done directly after the material is created or collected and that they often concern broader subjects. In this thesis I study the creator of the personal archives and the driving forces behind their collecting and submitting of material. My aim is to build an understanding for the little person in relation to the big historical context and the questions that I ask myself are: Who can the creator of the personal archives be and what’s important to her? What are the driving forces behind private collecting for these people? And does the creator of the personal archives want to be as visible as possible? In this essay I do not contemplate the material in the personal archives because I am just interested in understanding how the chain of thinking behind collecting material that concerns their own life could be understood. I have used a list of 17 questions and the 8 informants I got represent 5 of the 30 archives I have been in contact with. . I have used theories that concern power and how this power can be exercised and used in our advantage. My results from the survey showed that almost everybody think that the archives are in need of more and varied material. Only one informant says that the good for society was the driving force but when asked, most of the informant wished that the material could achieve this. The main driving force seemed to be the feeling of leaving traces due to the fact that most of them started collecting because they wanted to document their lives. Some put their belief in the people working at the archives when it comes to the use of the material but a few of them have very specific restrictions, one of them that the material is not to be used until 2036, which leads me to understand that not all creators of personal archives want to be as visible as possible. In my analysis and discussion I argue for how the litterature wants to see the collector and how I interpret the answers from my informants in relation to these thoughts