https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8814-4620
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ABSTRACT
This study analyzes the relationship between researchers and archivists in the People’s Republic of China, based on two co-authors’ respective experiences of the same archive centres. It shows how the clearance procedures, the imprecise regulations, and the arbitrary power of archivists at various levels can either open access to restricted documents, or prevent access to others that are supposedly ‘open to the public’. To this extent, this article shows how the fragmented and authoritarian nature of the Chinese bureaucracy shapes the relationship between administrators and the people.
Notes
1. Kraus, “Researching the History.”
2. Moseley, “Visiting Archives in China”; Moss, “Archives Law”; Moss, “Dang’an.”
3. Dikötter, Mao’s Great Famine;Yang, Tombstone.
4. Domenach, “Chine Les Balbutiement.”
5. Xu, Olympic Dreams.
6. Domenach, “Chine Les Balbutiement.”
7. Veyne, Comment on écrit l’histoire; Jordanova, History in Practice; De Laine, Fieldwork.
8. Lieberthal and Lampton, Bureaucracy, 15.
9. Strauss, Negotiations, 98.
10. Strauss, “The Hospital,” 158.
11. Ghosh and Urbansky, “Introduction,” 1.
12. Shoenhals, “Sinology Historical Research,” 2.
13. Ye and Esherick, Chinese Archive, 4.
14. Domenach and Hong-Planes, “Les nouvelles sources chinoises,” 14.
16. Yang Jisheng, “Bo Ese San Qianwan.”
17. Boucher, “Les archives de la République.”
18. Kraus, “Researching the History,” 2.
19. Kraus, “dealing with re-classified documents in China,” https://crkraus.com/2015/09/04/redacted-dealing-with-re-classified-documents-in-china/
21. Greitens and Truex, “Repressive Experiences.”
22. Diamant, “Why Archives?”
23. Ye and Esherick, Chinese Archive.
24. We anonymized the cities’ names in this article.
25. Greitens and Truex, “Repressive Experiences,”12.
26. Kurlantzick, Charm Offensive.
28. Maria and Stig, Doing Fieldwork.
29. Greitens and Truex, “Repressive Experiences,” 2.
30. Strauss and Corbin 1990, 10.
31. Prozorova-Thomas, “Accès Aux Archives,” 40.
32. Laurent, Archives secrètes.
33. See note 22 above.
34. Greitens and Truex, “Repressive Experiences,”12.
35. Bourdieu, On the State, 192.
36. “Every State organ, unit of the armed forces, political party, public organization, enterprise, institution and every citizen shall have the obligation to protect archives,” http://english.court.gov.cn/2016-04/15/content_24565261.htm
37. Moss, “Archives,” 486.
38. Du, “The Role of Archives.”
39. Froissart, “Issues in Social Science.”
40. Grignon, “Sociologie.”
41. Lahire, “Utilité.”
42. Goffman, Les Rites d’interactions, 94.
43. Kecskeméti, “L’accès aux Archives,” 30.
44. Moss, “Archives Law.”
45. De Laine, Fieldwork.
46. Foucault, Discipline and Punish.
47. Broadhead and Rist, 1976.
48. Blouin, “Moscow State Historico-Archival Institute,” 524.
49. Smith, “Russian History,” 454.
50. Duclert, “Le secret en politique,” 13–16.
51. Goffman, “Cooling the Mark Out”; Strauss, “The Hospital”; Foucault, Discipline and Punish.
52. In fact we were supposed to be restricted by the “Regulations on the use of national archives by foreign organizations and individuals’ (外国组织和个人利用我国档案试行办法) dating from 1 July 1992.
53. “Article 4: the foreign organization and individuals are using an archival documents of the archives center, after the approval of the accredited personnel from the archive centre have decided to approved or not the consultation”“Article 6: the foreign organization and individuals must fulfill an application form to obtain a copy of archives, which must be approve by the archives managerial personnel and handled by the archives centre. The content that can be copied, the number of copies is decided at the discretion of the archives centre”.
54. See note 31 above. 42.
55. Ibid.
56. Kecskeméti, “L’accès aux archives,” 25.
57. Raleigh, “Doing Soviet History.”
58. See note 8 above., 15.
59. Gudkov et al., “Bureaucratism and Bureaucracy.”
60. Dubois, Lozac’h, and Rowell, “Jeux bureaucratiques en regime”; Rowell, Le Totalitarisme Au Concret.
61. Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 404.
62. Kirby, “Archives and Histories”, 438.
63. See note 22 above.
64. Wu, “Annals of the Yellow Emperor.”
65. See note 9 above., 226
66. Bourdieu, Raisons Pratiques, 31–35.
67. Rowell, Le Totalitarisme Au Concret.
68. Hibou, Anatomie Politique, 204.
69. Bianco, Stalin and Mao.
70. Schwartz, Chinese Communism.
71. Strauss, “The Hospital,” 5–6.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Aurélien Boucher
Aurélien Boucher has been working on sport archives and sport history in China for more than ten years. He has published the book Introduction du sport en Chine in 2008, and is regularly teaching the course ‘Sport in China: A modern and contemporary history’ at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (Shenzhen). Besides he served as a reviewer for the journal ‘Sciences sociales et sport’ and ‘Asian Journal of Sport History and Culture’.
Benjamin Taunay
Benjamin Tunay is an assistant professor at Angers University. He has published a book entitled Le tourisme intérieur chinois and is currently working on beach activities since 2007.