An archival approach: the documents of a biomedical sciences laboratory

This article addresses archival methods, techniques, and practices for managing documents generated by scientific activity, using field research carried out at an Instituto Oswaldo Cruz laboratory at the Fundacao Oswaldo Cruz as a reference. Based on an analysis combining an archival studies approach with elements of the sociology of science, we believe that the models and instruments of archival knowledge are subordinate to the assumptions of historical research or social memory. They also serve a technical rationality aligned with empirical organization practices that confront the more complex archival reality, leading archival science to negate its foundations and theoretical principles.