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In the shadows of the continuum: testing the records continuum model through the Foreign and Commonwealth Office ‘Migrated Archives’

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Abstract

This article offers a test of the records continuum model. As a case study I use the Foreign and Commonwealth Office “Migrated Archives”, those records first made known to the public in 2011 during the court case against the British government. Through this case, records from over 30 former colonies were found to have been stored away by the FCO, since the colonies had become independent. While testing the continuum model with this case, I simultaneously use the records continuum model to tell the history of the Migrated Archives. My research finds that by highlighting the hidden moments—the shadows of the continuum—the Migrated Archives reveals that the continuum model can be too dependent on pluralization and a culture of openness and accessibility. Using the term “shadow continuum,” I attempt to rectify this situation by allowing for continuum model processes to continue, albeit in the shadows.

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Notes

  1. The report by Verhoeven, who had previously served as director of the archives of the Dutch East Indies, is held both in the papers of Marie Antoinette Petronella Meilink-Roelofsz in the Algemeen Rijksarchief archive of the Nationaal Archief in The Hague (2.14.03, inv.nr 1320) as well as the National Library of Singapore (NL27911, Report on the setting up of National Archives and Records Centre, Singapore).

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Acknowledgements

Author thanks to Eric Ketelaar and Mandy Banton for their helpful comments on this updated version. Research in Singapore was undertaken while an Asian Communication Research Centre Visiting Research Fellow at the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information at Nanyang Technological University in 2013.

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  1. Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Michael Karabinos

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  1. Michael Karabinos
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Correspondence to Michael Karabinos.

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This paper is a condensed and revised version of my doctoral dissertation The shadow continuum: testing the records continuum model through the Djogdja Documenten and the Migrated Archives, Leiden University, 2015.

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Karabinos, M. In the shadows of the continuum: testing the records continuum model through the Foreign and Commonwealth Office ‘Migrated Archives’. Arch Sci 18, 207–224 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10502-018-9292-9

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