Abstract/Résumé/Resumen
The diverse nature of community archives, as well as their commitment to social justice and the representation of social minorities, offers Archival Science opportunities to revisit theories and develop methodologies. Arising from the research activities of the project funded by the Program for the Incentive to the Production of Technical and Scientific Knowledge in the Field of Culture (PIPC) of the Casa de Rui Barbosa Foundation, entitled Community Archives and Public Custodial Institutions: Towards the Construction of Acquisition and Dissemination Methodologies Emphasizing Popular Participation, an opportunity was identified to develop a diagnostic tool grounded in archival functions, based on the premise of identifying which archival functions are common to community archives. This article aims to present the pathway undertaken in the conception of a diagnostic proposal, as well as the application of this diagnostic in two institutions located in the city of Rio de Janeiro. The research, bibliographic in nature and qualitative in approach, employs a literature review and the application of structured interviews as methodological procedures. As a result, it presents an instrument for recognizing community archives in the face of the heterogeneity of institutions, social groups, and individuals who seek to represent their histories through documents. It concludes that the proposed instrument identifies the archival functions common to community-based document preservation initiatives and, therefore, can be used to recognize a community archival collection.
