Methdological Subversions in the Absence of Archives

This paper seeks to understand how we might be able to tell the history of an organization or a sector when the record of the past has either been not maintained or deliberately erased, and we worked to construct an alternative methodology to research historical accounts. Set against the backdrop of Vietnam’s colonial history and experiences of political turmoil, we had to overcome this challenge creatively, understanding what made sense for that context, what could be asked, and how to collect data when it was not possible due to (auto)censorship or absence of material. We developed two alternative methods of inquiry: mobilizing objects to discuss stories that otherwise would be censored and the critical fabulations. In presenting how we approached these two methods, the paper opens up a discussion on a new role of a business historian: becoming a curator of memories through a relational approach to objects and memories.