Call for papers: An International Conference The Archival Impulse: Knowledge Production, Record Keeping, and Imperial Governance (15th-19th Centuries).

Call for papers: An International Conference The Archival Impulse: Knowledge Production, Record Keeping, and Imperial Governance (15th-19th Centuries). Vienna - March, 19-20 2026

While the examination of European imperial expansion has long been a focal point of historical inquiry, it is only two decades that scholars have begun to systematically question how knowledge production imbricated the vectors of colonialism and to rethink bureaucracy as an instrument of governance. When one looks at archives as subjects, anthropologist Laura Stoler has argued, archives can be more fruitfully conceptualized as a knowledge field where regimes of credibility are constructed. On the one hand, studies that view archives as agents endowed with epistemic force have gained much traction: a consensus among historians of empire and colonialism seems to be emerging around the notion of archives as loci of scribal power. On the other, recent studies have shown that archives are also sites of nescience or unknowing: empires, past and present, were often built on ignorance as much as on knowledge.

This scholarly trend, commonly known as “the archival turn,” thus leaves historians of imperial expansion and colonialism with a conceptual impasse. Once we have established that starting from the sixteenth century state formations made substantial investments in the production of knowledge resulting in new archival regimes, how can we explain that this knowledge was often not put to governmental service, was never exploited, or was simply ignored? In other words, is there a way for historians to explain the accumulation of documents in the archives beyond the “knowledge = power” equation? This conceptual impasse invites us to pursue further our engagement with the archival turn and at the same time encourages us to move beyond conventional approaches to the preservation of records.

This conference aims at examining how archives have grown along with imperial expansion from the fifteenth to the nineteenth century. It invites proposals that engage with the history of empires, knowledge production, record keeping, and governance across different geographies. We especially encourage papers on documentary cultures across Eurasia, including contributions from scholars specializing in the history of Central and Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Central Asia, East, South, and Southeast Asia. The goal is to historicize archival impulses globally by linking practices of record-keeping with the history of books and readership, scholarship, and education across Eurasian imperial formations. Looking at processes of knowledge production and circulation linked to colonial conquests from the early modern era through the nineteenth century, we aim at dissecting the multifaceted contexts and dynamics that have historically shaped archives. This exploration will consider the evolution of these processes over time and their intricate entanglements with concepts of power, governance, and authority. Furthermore, we will interrogate how archival transformations have mirrored and influenced local and global political realignments.

Within the framework of this conference, we anticipate stimulating papers and academic conversations along the following thematic lines:

The Imperial Machine. Exploring archives at the nexus of power and ambiguity and the role of archives as both facilitator of governance and sites of unexploited knowledge, inefficiencies, and contestation.

Political Curiosity. Investigating the role of intellectual and diplomatic inquiries in shaping imperial policies, and how curiosity-driven knowledge production influenced governance and expansion strategies.

Archival Nescience.Exploring practices of silencing, concealment, and selective memory in imperial archives, and their implications for historical knowledge and erasure.

Forging Historical Insight. Examining the emergence of archives as primary venues for historical and historiographical knowledge production.

Epistemologies of Access. Reflecting on how the (in-)accessibility of archives in today’s changing world impacts the historiography of the archival turn.

Between Imperial Arcana and Publicité. Analyzing the tension between secrecy and public access in archival policies during the eighteenth century and beyond, and its impact on governance and transparency.

Archivist Persona. Delving into the cultural and social history of archival personnel, their roles, identities, and contributions to the shaping of archival knowledge.

We invite colleagues to send a short CV and a 300-word abstract for a thirty-minute paper, addressing the questions above. The deadline for submission is 30 March 2025. Please send these documents to sice(at)oeaw.ac.at. Applicants will be notified of the acceptance of their proposal by April 18, 2025. The conference is jointly organized by the FWF-Project “Central Asia in Russian Diplomatic Archives”, the Committee for the Study of Islam in Central Eurasia (SICE) at the Austrian Academy of Sciences, and the Austrian Cluster of Excellence “EurAsian Transformations”. The conference will take place at the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna. Some support for travel costs will be available. Accommodation in Vienna will be provided for the duration of the conference.

Ulfat Abdurasulov (Austrian Academy of Sciences)

Jan Hennings (Central European University)

Paolo Sartori (Austrian Academy of Sciences)