Information as proof or monument: materiality, institutionality and representation

Abstract

This paper concerns materiality, institutionality and representation modes as aspects comprising information as “proof” or “monument”. It criticizes the power/knowledge relation in practices involving probation contexts in retrieval and storage systems (e.g. the archive), as well as in various knowledge fields. We present the following hypothesis: while the objective or physical dimension of information prioritizes pretensions of representation of reality (emphasis on the probation/authenticity value), the social dimension criticizes pragmatic and symbolic aspects comprised and comprising in discourses about reality (found in the value of monumentality). Our aim is to analyze information as proof or monument from an interdisciplinary perspective, facing various forms of knowledge in Information Science, as well as documental, judiciary, historiographical, archival and diplomatic perspectives, which find in the document their theoretical, methodological, and operational subsidies. We indicate the transformation of materialized “evidence” in an institutionalized “thing” amidst the “proof” assumes: a) subjects with some authority; b) a document bringing together epistemological and political dimensions summarized in their permanent and material (support) condition, and its ephemeral and immaterial (pragmatic and symbolic) condition. As a result, we explore and exemplify epistemological and political implications of representation modes facing the statements: a) “the document, if authentic, leads to the truth”, guiding “information as proof” towards the representation of social reality; and b) “every document is a monument””, guiding the “information as monument” towards legitimizing discourses about reality.