• The Korean Journal of Archival Studies
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• no.82
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• pp.173-229
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• 2024

An archive is a "representation of actions and activities" that bears different effects depending on its purpose and intention. Also, various archival practices reinforce the political nature of the archive including the subject's purpose and intention. Such effects are not confined to a single event and its records but extend to broader society through interactions. This process is demonstrated more significantly in social conflicts in which stakeholders archive their actions and decision-making process as they compete with other parties. This study examines such archive politics through a case study of the "Ssangyong Motors Strike" in 2009. In "Ssangyong Motors Strike", multiple stakeholders vigorously produced records that reflected each subject's perspective, purpose, and intention throughout the lifespan of the event-prior to, during, and after the primary incident. This article pays particular attention to two archive cases from ex-post investigation and fact-finding processes. One was produced by the Special Investigation TF of Seoul Bar Association and the other by the Korean National Police Agency's Fact-finding Committee of Human Rights Violations. The two cases illustrate the concept of archive effect and the representation of political and social accountability through archiving. This study argues that archives and archival practices induced by the Ssangyong Motors Incident had extended archive effects leading to communal restoration, healing, and social progress beyond the resolution of the immediate conflict and problems.