By Madeline Kauffman

The readings of Durba Ghosh and Jennifer S. Milligan reflect the great importance of archives, both to historians and to the nations in which they are housed. Each author presents such importance in different lights and ultimately comment on how archives are crucial to the creation of nations.

In Ghosh’s “National Narratives and the Politics of Miscegenation: Britain and India” the author insists that archives contribute to the creation of national narratives and thus contribute to the creation of the nation. The availability of certain sources and documents within an archive depicts what the government and archivists deem as important to the nation and its people. Such power and influence shapes the way in which a nation is perceived, both by the citizens who live there, as well as scholars, such as Ghosh. In the article, Ghosh tells her own “archive story,” focusing on the time she spent in Britain and India studying interracial marriage during the period of British colonialism in India. From her experience in Britain, it was clear that such topic was embraced by the nation, portrayed by the willingness of the archivists to help and the ample amounts of sources within the archives. Her time in India, however, revealed a distinct distaste for such topic and a desire to deny its presence from the national narrative. Sources were constantly unavailable or kept from the public, and people were unwilling to help.

Milligan, through her piece, “What is an Archive,” argues that archives represent the importance of the close relationship between the nation and the archive, and thus portray the multiple power regimes that shaped the nation as a whole. As she explains through her example with the Archives nationales, archives are reinforced and reformulated with each new power regime. This in turn is represented through the accumulation of official documents, and ultimately gives recognition to the state.

The Dickinson archives hold numerous amounts of documents that are in relation to the college, as well as to the greater community in which the college resides. To question whether this archive could be connected to the building of a nation is indeed very interesting. If it was to build a nation that incorporated just the greater Carlisle community, then yes, I would say that it would be possible. The documents within said archive represent what we as a community hold to be valuable and important, and in that sense, it determines our “national” narrative.