Archival activism is deeply influenced by activism. It describes an open and participatory archival practice method, which helps to enrich archival collections and maintain the authenticity and integrity of memory. By adopting content analysis, the paper clarifies the conceptual boundary of archival activism and sorts out its historical development after coding and categorizing the research perspectives and categories. It is found that archival activism originated from the introspection of activism in the post-industrial civilization era, from Zinn's admiration of archival activists, and grew up in the advocacy of community archiving and fair archiving. And from the perspective of "society-institution-individual", six core connotations and concrete manifestations in social practice are put forward. Due to the differences in political system, social environment, cultural background, and action goals, it is necessary to criticizecalmly: be alert to the simplification of core concepts, cautiously question the neutrality of archival work, re-examine the role of archival profession, and consider the differences between Chinese and Western cultures.