Paper short abstract:

This jointly presented paper focuses on the archival absences in two institutional archives of contemporary Ghana: the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation (Bloom) and the Volta River Authority (Miescher). These silences are examined in relation to bureaucratic functionality and strategies of omission.

Paper long abstract:

When the will to amass the weight of archival evidence to make meaningful arguments about a particular context is stymied by missing or discarded documents, what then? We examine what exists within these absences, and their relationship to coercive forms of state power. This jointly presented paper is based on two case studies at national institutions in post-independence Ghana: the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation (Bloom) and the Volta River Authority (Miescher). We explore a series of archival gaps and absences as part of our ongoing research projects which underscore the relationship of these archives to political prerogative. While oral history is one significant methodological approach to account for these silences, we emphasize these gaps as an expression of power. It is here that the realm of secrecy, rumor, innuendo, and speculation emerge as a means of re-inhabiting the archive against the grain of its intention. The credo of the professional researcher is often allied with the detective in search of clues and motivation of characters at "the scene of the crime." If the institutional setting may be said to stand in for this scene, the archive as allied with the institution then serves as the repository of memory and denial. In our examination of archival practices, we ask how absences not only reveal institutional objectives, but also shed light on their ambivalent relationship to state power.