Documents and the routes they follow constitute the fabric of organisational life. As such, various social and political values are associated with the disposition of administrative records and data.
What can we learn from the unmaking of documents?
In some cases, destroying files is understood as corruption or cover-up. In others it safeguards privacy, or signifies probity in records management.
Through historical and contemporary case studies, this research project explores the contextual and contradictory ideals around the shredding, burning or otherwise rendering illegible of files. The monograph, titled Destruction of Documents, is scheduled for release with MIT Press towards the end of 2026.
Andrew Whelan 