Ideas about my research project

After searching for more information to start working in my research project, I have found that my initial idea of studying the concept of evidence and archives in the case of Pinochet regime will be very difficult to work during this semester (mainly because of the limitations with data). I came across Alasdair Roberts book “Blacked out: government secrecy in the information age” and found very interesting one his argument that even though the current government has been trying to increase government secrecy, the development of new information technologies has also increase the leaking of secret information (ex. Abu Garib scandal). As he indicates, “from a technical point of view – leaking was also easier than ever before.” (Roberts: p. 73) These kind of discussions are of interest of me, specially on analyzing the archival implications of government secrecy.

Following Gorman and Clayton discussion in Chapter 3 (specifically on p. 39) on thinking about research design, I’m establishing a possible framework for my project:
- What should be the focus?
I will like to focus on studying the discourse on government secrecy in the United States. What are the arguments that the press has present discussing government secrecy in the past 25 to 30 years? What about groups and organizations? And more important, what is the discourse from the archival profession?
- How should this be studied?
This question deals with the possible data sources I’ll be studying. These sources will include newspaper articles (specially op-ed), selected organizations websites, archives listserve, records manager listserve. In addition, I will be reviewing the literature related to this topic.

I still struggling on developing a more specific framework, and is very probable that I will need to narrow my topic (narrow it by a specific period of time, or by specific cases).

Some notes on this week readings:
I found Ch. 3 of Gorman & Clayton the most useful of the readings for this week, probably because what is explained here is where we are right know on our research project (selecting a topic, initial questions, etc.). In addition, it includes an explanation on the relationship of historical research with qualitative research (p. 42-43). Most of the discussions about qualitative research concentrate on the methods of observation and interviewing. But as explained by Gorman & Clayton, “although the historical method is often overlooked in qualitative research texts, it certainly embodies most of the characteristics of qualitative methodology.” (p. 42) By understanding and analyzing the historical context of organizations or events, we will also understand “its historical roots, its evolution over time.” (p. 42) It would be interesting to do a more in depth analysis on why historical research is overlooked in the literature about qualitative research.