Work

A fieldwork manual as a regulatory device: Instructing, prescribing and describing documentation work

Year: 2023

Type: article

Abstract: Research on how archaeological fieldwork manuals, a sub-category of methods handbooks, regulate research documentation is limited. Qualitative content analysis of 25 English-language archaeological field manuals from the early 1900s to 2010s showed that they instruct how to describe the documentation work, prescribe practices and workflows, and function as often pre-coordinated descriptions of work. A manual forms a ‘working space’ that is sometimes adopted as such by following the detailed advice given in some of the texts but likely more often used as a more general point of reference. The fact that many manuals do not provide exact recipes for the fieldwork as a whole means that they function as comprehensive representations and documentation (paradata) of actual fieldwork practices only when read in parallel with field documentation.

Source: Journal of Information Science

DOI: 10.1177/01655515231203506

Authors: Isto Huvila, Olle Sköld

Institution: Uppsala University

Language: English

Topic: Digital and Traditional Archives Management

Subfield: Conservation

Field: Arts and Humanities

Domain: Social Sciences

Open Access status: hybrid

Estimated APC paid: $3,250

Funder: European Commission