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3) What is meant by provenance and why it is important to archival researchers?

Provenance means the place of origin or earliest known history of something. For

archival researchers provenance has great significance. As a researcher they need to

know the actual order of the material within the file as it tells something itself to the

archival researchers for the situation when that file was being created. Given their

origins linked to public institutions with hierarchical organization systems and their aim

to keep record of the activities of those institutions, both for legal purposes and for

historical permanence, archives were historically created by those in a power position

within the State and, consequently, the selection criteria were defined by the dominant

political ideology. The resulting archival material gave the perspective of the hegemonic

discourse and this was further perpetuated in the research derived from these archives,

which accepted as neutral and objective the historical evidence provided by records.

There is no single correct way of presenting provenance for archives researchers they

mainly rely on how it is documented.