Delicate matters: ethical dilemmas that archivists encounter assessing records from psychiatric and social care

Abolut the project

Are the archives to be seen as part of societal interventions in people’s lives, or as an impartial instance between individual and state? The aim of this dissertation project is to shed light on archivists’ professional roles by investigating how they, as civil servants balance legislation, discretion, and professional judgment, and how they argue on this balance. This is done through a case study of how professional archivists perceive and judge vulnerability, and how they deal with the disclosures of sensitive information in psychiatric and social care records.

The project is a part of the interdisciplinary Engaging Vulnerability research program, funded by the Swedish Research Council.

Ida Grönroos is engaged in the research areas Archival science and Library research.

Her PhD project will result in a monograph dissertation, written in English. Supervisors are Kerstin Rydbeck, Reine Rydén, and Mats Hyvönen.