Chinese “archival” stories of lifecycle management: tracing three major reformative events from 1933 to 2010

Abstract

In the American style records lifecycle model, its main entity is represented by the concept of records. However, the Chinese way of describing the same entity and its movement utilizes two concepts, (both) WenJian and DangAn, which cannot be directly matched to “records” and “archives.” This historical study tells the stories of three major reformative events in WenJian and DangAn management that occurred in China from 1933 to 2010: the “WenShu–DangAn Reform” in the 1930s, a reformative trend based on an idea called “Integrating WenJian and DangAn Management” that emerged during the 1980s, and a major reformative event pushing for “Whole-process Management” that was initiated in the 2000s. The article traces the background, processes, and outcomes and implications of each reformative event, using the WenJian–DangAn lifecycle as a background “framing device” to help readers to understand the interconnectedness of the three stories. As a conclusion, all three reformative events aimed to promote the coordination between WenJian and DangAn work over the WenJian–DangAn lifecycle (though not necessarily across the full lifecycle), but each event—in interaction with the historical conditions of their period—focused on coordinating the parts/aspects/segments that they considered as the most important, urgent, or practical at the time. Collectively, these stories of WenJian–DangAn lifecycle management can illuminate some of the achievements and struggles of the Chinese DangAn community across 80 years of “archival” history.