Archival Research Processes: A Case for Material Methods

Abstract

This article argues for a framework of material methods, a forefronted material-rhetorical approach to archival research, applying material-methodological heuristics of rhetorical accretion and proximity. The article offers an extended example of archival research undertaken at the Public Records Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI). Such heuristic content generated by a material approach is valuable in two ways. First, it offers readable layers of rhetorical accretion that deserve examination and analysis as separate texts in order to make meaning of research processes. Second, such content makes archival methods more transparent while resisting an untroubled narrative arc of our stories of research.

Notes

1. ¹I thank RR reviewers Vicki Burton and Lynée Gaillet for their close read and excellent revision suggestions. This work was further supported by the University of Winnipeg (grant number RS#3731).

2. ²I don’t suggest that archival research is necessarily synonymous with historiography; however, often one depends upon the other.

3. ³A range of these theoretical works in relation to histories of rhetoric and composition is well-detailed in L’Epplatenier 68.

4. ⁴The period of the Irish Troubles, or the struggle of Northern Irish people to unite with the southern Republic of Ireland rather than to be a part of the United Kingdom, was marked primarily with sectarian Protestant-Catholic violence. An ethno-nationalist conflict, it can be said to pit Protestant Unionists and Loyalists against Catholic nationalists and republicans.

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Notes on contributors

Jennifer Clary-Lemon

Jennifer Clary-Lemon is Associate Professor in Rhetoric, Writing, and Communications at the University of Winnipeg and past editor of Composition Studies. Her research interests include writing and location, disciplinarity, critical discourse studies, and research methodologies. Her recent publications may be found in Discourse and Society, The American Review of Canadian Studies, Composition Forum, Oral History Forum d’histoire orale, and College Composition and Communication.