Trådar av historien : en studie av bevarandet av textilt kulturarv i arkiv

Sammanfattning: This master’s thesis aims to illuminate how the textile cultural heritage such as textiles and the documentation about textiles is currently preserved in archives. This is a field of study that is currently absent in the research of archival science and research in general. Three archives with material connected to textile cultural heritage were interviewed for this study. To answer how textile cultural heritage is preserved in archives I examined which appraisal practices are used, connecting this with the organizations' respective views of cultural heritage. I also studied how the organizations store a variety of different materials, and whether the materiality of the objects affects whether the archives follow the Principle of Provenance, which is the custom in Swedish archives. Lastly, I examined how the archival holdings are used and made accessible, this is analyzed through the Records Continuum model, as well as theories of material culture. The results show that textile cultural heritage is preserved in archives in a variety of ways. The archives store actual textiles, as well as documentation about textiles that represent society from different angles. Some archives are purely driven by interest, while others are preserved by law. The results also illuminate that the organizations' respective views of cultural heritage, as well as the history behind the collecting of the archival collections, are closely connected to the current appraisal practices of the archives. None of the studied organizations follow the Principle of Provenance. Instead, my research indicates that archives with varying materials seem to be returning to the Principle of Pertinence, which was used up to the 19th century before the Principle of Provenance became the norm. Lastly, the results show that all interviewed organizations mean for the archival collections to be studied and used. They all work with outreach in different ways to make the archival collections available. This can be understood through the Records Continuum Model since the archival materials are brought to life in new contexts in time and space. Textile material can be understood as documents that can tell us information about the context they were created in, and are therefore suitable as archival documents. The findings of this study are important since it is the first of its kind to explore the preservation of the textile cultural heritage in archives. It brings light to a part of the field of archival studies that has been overlooked, and that holds information about the intersection of archival and museum practices, and what will become our shared cultural heritage.