What are “good” kinds of archival evidence for theorizing? Surprisingly, the word archive and discussions of the archival process rarely appear in methods textbooks or discussions of methods in historical sociology. Yet, much recent historicized sociology relies upon documents left over by a small group of actors to make large-scale claims. To address this oversight, we leverage the evidentiary strengths of qualitative sociology and translate them for historical sociology. Our central argument is that three kinds of archival evidence are likely to produce generalizable claims: positive contingency, learning by mistakes, and plausible alternatives. Examples are illustrated with the cases of jail overcrowding in Los Angeles County, anti-redlining policy in the Federal Reserve, and immigration policy in the Dillingham commission.

中文翻译：

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档案理论化：偶然性、错误和合理的替代方案

什么是理论化的“好”档案证据？令人惊讶的是，档案和档案过程的讨论这个词很少出现在方法教科书或历史社会学方法的讨论中。然而，最近许多历史化的社会学依赖于一小群参与者留下的文件来做出大规模的主张。为了解决这种疏忽，我们利用定性社会学的证据优势并将其转化为历史社会学。我们的中心论点是，三种档案证据可能会产生可概括的主张：积极的偶然性、从错误中学习和合理的替代方案。以洛杉矶县监狱人满为患的案例、美联储的反红线政策和迪林厄姆委员会的移民政策为例进行了说明。