This special section considers the relevance of a reflexive engagement with archives in psychology, and explores the value of archives as a resource for empirical inquiry and scholarship. The contributions offer reflective commentaries on the potential and limitations of working with (and within) archives. They also highlight the range of theoretical, methodological and practical issues that psychologists might want to take into account when engaging in this kind of inquiry, including the need to treat archives and archiving as set of societal practices through which the past is not only preserved, but also constructed, and constituted.