The policy of the archives of France respecting associative archives
Georges Mouradian
Centre des archives du monde du travail, National Archives of France
The archives of associations are one of the major sources of the history of French society in the 20th century owing to the extent of the associative phenomenon since the law of July 1, 1901. In the year 2000, over 20 million French citizens belonged to one or more associations. The country has over 800,000 associations, and on average, 60,000 come into existence each year.
Not counting unions, which come under an 1884 law, associations produce archives that cover every sphere of the society’s activity. A very simplified typology yields the following broad categories:
- political, ideological, and philosophical associations;
- cultural associations;
- religious associations;
- sports associations;
- solidarity and social welfare associations;
- youth and popular education associations, etc.
The archival holdings of associations may also be classified according to their links with the public service. While statutorily, associations are private law entities, that is to say, non-governmental, there are in France many para-governmental associations whose activities tend to be confused with those of public authorities and whose records need to be reconciled in terms of their mode of production, their content and their rules of public records management.
Other associations, which operate independently, are largely funded by the State or territorial institutions and have public service or general interest missions. While their archives are not confused typologically with government records, their obligations in terms of conservation and management may be similar. At the other extreme are voluntary associations, which often arise spontaneously and circumstantially during conflicts. They pose the problem of the difficulty of the approach to and appraisal of very informal documentary output.
Archival Processing
The proposal of norms for the processing of associative archives demands a specific typological approach.
Management files, social records, by-laws, and policy-making bodies are managed by the law of associations. They are produced in accordance with legal and regulatory requirements, in forms defined by procedures. Therefore, they can be organized fairly easily into records schedules with typological descriptions, definitions of retention periods, and proposals for destruction, sorting or retention.
The same cannot be said of the specific records produced through the activity of the association and its adopted missions. These must be critically appraised, cross-checking data such as the social utility of the activity undertaken, the originality of the organization or the operation of the association, its insertion (or not) into a broader network, the extent of its geographical, local, national or international reach, its degree of notoriety, the type of population it affects, and so on.
On the basis of this appraisal, classes—functional and non-thematic whenever possible—can be proposed, with two or three hierarchic levels at most. These tools must reconcile ease of use; the desire for the standardization of descriptions, based, as much as possible, on the ISAD(G); the flexibility of the proposed class to meet all specificities; and the ups and downs of the life of the association in records production and management.
Special Problems
The lack of consistency in this production and management produces many deficiencies in the holdings. Hence the importance, more so than in other fields, of the search for complementary sources: records of trusteeship or administrative control, records of the financial institutions of associative life, the press, grey literature and documentation.
The constitution of oral sources is of primary importance in structures where written production is not always dense or well organized.
Photographic, illustrative or audio-visual sources are particularly important as many associations are preoccupied with their communication and produce numerous documents of this nature.
The expression of associative movements often includes the production of objects such as banners, commemorative objects and medals, calendars, almanacs and pins, whose archival or non-archival status must be determined and their collection assured.
Action Strategy
Support for the public archives network is the rule in France and is essential for the preservation of associative archives. Intervention occurs at the following levels: direct control of retention, processing and appraisal; prospecting and technical advice; and financial support for the association’s internal projects. In all scenarios, experience shows the need for archivists to be able to propose clear, egalitarian and reliable partnerships—essential in settings where the activist sensibility is well entrenched.
Bibliography:
- Direction des archives de France, Les Archives des associations. Approche descriptive et conseils pratiques. La Documentation française, Paris 2001 (in press).
- Interministerial mission to celebrate the law of 1901, L’Image de la vie associative en France. Institut national de la Jeunesse et de l’Éducation Populaire, Paris 2001.
- Belorgey (Jean-Michel), Cent ans de vie associative. Presses de Sciences Po, Paris 2000.
- Hildesheimer (Françoise) and Joly (Bertrand), État sommaire des archives d’associations conservées aux Archives nationales. Archives nationales, Paris, 1990.
Georges Mouradian
Conservateur général du patrimoine
Degrees:
- Paleographic Archivist.
- M.A. in Classics.
- B.A. in Law.
- 1971 Conservator at the Seine-Maritime Departmental Archives.
- 1976 Head of a labour organization at the Ministry of Culture.
- 1987 Director of the Seine-Saint-Denis Departmental Archives.
- 1994 Director of the Centre des archives du monde du travail.
- 1990 UNDP mission to the National Archives of Burkina Faso.
- 1991 ICA mission to the National Archives of Vietnam.
- 1992 ICA mission to the National Archives of Laos.
- 1995 and 2000 BIEF and UNESCO missions to the National Archives of Rwanda.
- Representative of the Archives de France on the International Committee for the digitization project of the Komintern Archives (INCOMKA).