The Review And Reflection On The Study Of Ethnic Archives In Three Decades

As an important sub-discipline of archival science, ethnic archives science was originated from the1960s, and constructed between1980s-1990s, and has been rapidly developed after that. Through the study and analysis of literatures on ethnic archives science from1984to2014, the author consider that although there is a large amount of studies on the basic theories (basic concepts, basic structures, subject characters, subject systems, etc.) and the detailed management practice (collection, collation, compilation, etc.) of ethnic archives science, and it have made great progress and development compared to previous studies, the overall trend of the study on ethnic archives science is still stagnant. From the statistical results of previous literatures, the majority of the works mainly focus on the basic theoretical study on ethnic archives science, and most of the researchers are experts and scholars from diverse universities. Relatively speaking, there are not so many studies on concrete management, and the researchers are mostly grass-roots archivists. In addition, the development of this digital, information-based society has also brought a certain impact on the study of the discipline theories and methods of ethnic archives science. Some scholars have carried on the exploration to apply the methods and paradigms of anthropology research into the research of ethnic archives science, and it has achieved success to some degree. This expands the research contents of the ethnic archives science, and what is more important is that, it also provides new thoughts and paradigms for the study of ethnic archives science.