6 May 2005
Throughout history archives have been used as a method of control and oppression against those on whom records are kept, but increasingly people are using these files to learn about their own history.
Visiting Monash academic Professor Eric Ketelaar, from the Department of Media Studies at the University of Amsterdam, says archives are often viewed as 'Big Brother' monitoring our every move.
"In all totalitarian systems records are used as instruments of power, surveillance, oppression, and even torture and murder," he says.
"Just look at South Africa during apartheid, the German Democratic Republic with its Stasi files, the Soviet Union with its KGB archive, the Khmer Rouge archives and Nazi Germany.
"And even in Australia we keep records on the Indigenous Australians that were removed from their parents as children or the migrant detainees who are housed in detention centres."
Professor Ketelaar says while often these records are stored as tools of oppression, today these same records are being used by individuals to help them connect to their past.
He says people look to historical records to learn more about the communities from which they came, their own or their family's identities and, in some instances, to seek justice.
"Without these records, many people just don't have an identity," he says.
"People in detention centres often come into the country as paperless people so their history can only be traced back as far as the centre. The same is true for many of Australia's Indigenous population. These records are the only paper link they have to their former communities."
Professor Ketelaar says that for many people oppressed by totalitarian regimes, archives provide not only evidence to ensure the oppressors are brought to justice, but also to construct a "shared truth" as a prerequisite for healing and reconciliation.
"The East German intelligence services, the Stasi, kept files on six million people, the records were used to oppress and control the population, but after the collapse, these same records helped individuals, families and society to come to grips with the past," he says.
Professor Ketelaar is now looking at how different communities, including immigrant Australian minorities and Eastern European nations, use archives to learn about their past and to tie their identities from their old and new countries together.
Professor Ketelaar is an honorary professor in the Faculty of Information Technology (School of Information and Management Systems) at Monash University. | 
