*Correspondence: Anne.Byrne@nuigalway.ie or deirdre.omahony@gmit.ie Abstract: We consider a methodological opportunity when revisiting classical anthropological studies, namely the social anthropological archive of the Harvard-Irish Survey (1930-1936). A gift of the Irish ield diaries of Conrad Arensberg and Solon Kimball, together with the with familial and community efects of being written about in published accounts is our departure point. We explore the potential of collaborative research that is dialogical, aesthetic, community based and generates knowledge that fosters ‘empathetic insight’ (Kester 2004). Our approach is a form of ‘relexive revisiting’ of the archive via ield diaries and photographs from the 1930s, suggesting an alternative methodology for mutually engaging successor participants, artist and sociologist in transformatory acts in relation to community efects of anthropological research (Burawoy 2003). Keywords: Arensberg, Kimball, archive, art, dialogical aesthetic, community, successors. Introduction In the early 1930s, Ireland was the focus of an archaeological and anthropological study of a modern nation conducted by academics from Harvard University. Known as the Harvard-Irish Survey, it had three strands: archaeology, physical anthropology and social anthropology. he site of the latter included Rinnamona in the heart of the Burren, adjacent to what was to become the Burren National Park in 1991. Survey publications, he Irish Countryman (1937) by Conrad Arensberg, and Family and Community in Ireland (1940) by Conrad Arensberg and Solon Kimball, are considered ‘classic’ texts and remain inluential within sociological and anthropological spheres (Byrne, Edmondson, Varley 2001). Family and Community in Ireland continues to be regarded as a baseline ethnographic study of the interconnectedness of farm and family life in rural Ireland in the 1930s, providing a snapshot of rural society in transition between traditional and modern culture. he classic accounts inspired not only generations of academics; for example, on reading he Irish Countryman, Dorothea Lange visited Clare producing a photo essay based on scenes from the text for LIFE magazine (Lange 1955). he history and publications of the Harvard-Irish Survey have been debated in Irish anthropology and sociology (Gibbon 1973, Peace 1989, Wilson 1984, Wilson and Donnan 2006). It is claimed as the starting point for the professionalisation of Irish archaeology while subject to judgement by Irish sociologists critical of the functionalist theoretical framework employed, for substantive ommissions and for lack of attention to the efects of institutional and ecclesiatical power and conlict in Irish society (Byrne et al 2001, French 2013). he force and tensions of these positionings and debates frame academic reengagment with the archives of the Harvard-Irish Survey. Zeitlyn (2012) considers that the archive, anthropological or governmental, is associated with the exercise of power while pointing to Foucault and Derrida’s idea of its subversive potential to ‘excavate and recover subjugated voices’ (2012: 464) if ‘read across or along the archival grain’ (2012: 462). When considering the subjects (and their descendants) of anthropological ieldwork, how do we acknowledge concerns and make space for groups that ‘historically have not been party to discussions’ (2012: 474). What opportunities exist, what invitations are extended to subjects or successors to reengage with the anthropological archive? his paper tells a story of academic and successor participant reengagement with the archives of the Harvard-Irish Survey by sociologist Anne Byrne, artist Deirdre O’Mahony and the descendants of some of the families whose lives are detailed in published and unpublished texts; Mary Moroney, John Ruane, Sean Revisiting and Reframing the Anthropological Archive: the Harvard-Irish Survey (1930-1936) Anne Byrne* and Deirdre O’Mahony* Fig 1: Arensberg’s ield diary, photograph courtesy of Anne Byrne.