The Inverted Archive: Thresholds, Authenticity and the Demos

Abstract

This paper argues that the jus archivi concept of the “archival threshold”, in which receipt of records by an authoritative archive serves to authenticate those records, is inverted in the era of open government data and civic technologies. These technologies of witnessing create an expectation of transparency that reverses the function of the threshold; it is only through the transmission of data out of archives and into public space that authenticity can be judged. In a time of ‘fake news’ and so called ‘alternative facts’, this dynamic is problematic and raises questions about participation in state information systems.