A history of archives in Zambia, 1890-1991

English: This thesis examines the significant role of national archives’ legislative framework, and of archival practices of appraisal, preservation and management, in the creation, positioning and formation of an identity for Zambia’s archives under different government systems between 1890 and 1991. In so doing, it describes the procedures involved in the creation of archives and demonstrates the diversity and the shifting notions of the nature and importance of archives for bureaucracies and different government systems. While the British South African Company administration pioneered the process of generating records through administrative operations, their appreciation of records and archives was largely functional and devoid of devising a formal policy for standardising permanent preservation and collection practices. A conceptual shift to archives as sources of precedents and of colonial histories, prompted successive administrations of British colonial government and the federal government of Rhodesia and Nyasaland to devise a system of centralisation of permanent archives and the formulation of legislation denoting the nature of the archives and their safe preservation – thus changing the power dynamic lodged in the archives. In the postcolony, an understanding of archives as custodian of national histories attracted intensive state interest and control through reviews of colonial archives legislation and strategic decentralisation of the archiving system. This thesis argues that Zambia’s archives have a history linked to changing administrative structures, legislative frameworks and archival perceptions and practices. It argues that the nature and position of Zambia’s archives in government, and hence its history, evolved over time with shifts in administration, legislation, archival professionalisation and practices of preservation and management and changes in the perception of archives.