A Critique of Social Justice as an Archival Imperative: What Is It We're Doing That's All That Important?

In recent years, a new and provocative thesis has been presented to the archival profession, to wit: to be an ethical archivist, one must pursue "social justice" in all phases of archival practice. While a professional agenda of social justice encompasses the more familiar ideology of "activist archivist," it stretches much farther and has much more profound consequences for our profession. This article challenges both the philosophy and utility of social justice as the end of archival effort and proposes an alternative goal for the profession.