Gender and Archiving: Past, Present, Future

This 37th volume of the Yearbook of Women's History focuses on the meaning and potential of archiving for enhancing gender equality and the position of women worldwide. More than just storehouses of knowledge, archives offer new ways for understanding the past, debating the present and creating the future. Focusing on both traditional and non-traditional archival practices, in various parts of the world, the Yearbook of Women's History explores the meaning of archiving for women and women's history. Besides investigating the feminist potential of the archive, it also examines questions of erasure and forgetting. While archives may have emancipatory or democratizing potential, practices of discarding equally shape the histories that can be written, and the stories that can be told. The articles in this volume are alternated with descriptions of collections and institutes, and the topics addressed cover a full range of archival theory and practice.

This volume has been produced by the editorial board of the Yearbook of Women's History in collaboration with Atria, institute on gender equality and women's history in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

Contents: Editorial   Introduction: ANTIA WIERSMA/RENÉE RÖMKENS, The Archival Turn: Archiving as a Tool for Empowerment   FRANCISCA DE HAAN, Archive Fever, Resistance, and Loss: A Rereading of the IAV’s Early History   Archival practice: ASLI DAVAZ, The Women’s Library and Information Centre Foundation in Istanbul, Turkey   KATE EICHHORN, Past-Futures: The Temporality of Feminist Archives   Archival practice: JANET OLSON, Research Resources at the Frances Willard Memorial Library and Archives   MOLLY BOWER/TASHINA BLOM, Social Media Archiving: Cultural Memory and Digital Community Activism   Archival practice: ADELE PATRICK, Glasgow Women’s Library   ROSE MARY ALLEN, ‘Nothing about us, without us’: Constructing Women’s Historical Knowledge, a Case Study of Curaçao   Archival practice: C.S. LAKSHMI/SRUTI BALA, No more sewing machines! The Challenges of a Women’s Archive in India   CAROLYN BIRDSALL, Divisions of Labour: Radio Archiving as Gendered Work in Wartime Britain and Germany   Archival practice: WENDY E. CHMIELEWSKI, Swarthmore College Peace Collection   RIA VAN DER MERWE, Democratizing the South African ‘Memory Bank’: Embroidering Black Women’s Voices on the Archival Canvas   Interview: SYLVIA HOLLA/NOORTJE WILLEMS, Creating Archival Sources. Reflections on an Innovative Feminist Oral History Approach, en Interview with Evelien Rijsbosch   Summaries   About the Authors

'Archivering in de eenentwintigste eeuw was in december 2015 het onderwerp van de internationale conferentie bij Atria, het kennisinstituut voor Emancipatie en Vrouwengeschiedenis. Voortbouwend op enkele lezingen en uitgebreid met nieuwe bijdragen, is er nu een jaarboek verschenen rond het thema Archivering en Gender. [...] Deze editie van het Jaarboek Vrouwengeschiedenis heeft mijn archivistische blik verruimd. Op verschillende plekken op de wereld is nog genoeg opbouwwerk te doen, omdat gespecialiseerde archieven nog jong zijn. Vooral het belang van het vertellen van het verhaal met een andere invalshoek en vanuit een ander perspectief komt naar voren in deze uitgave. Want dat het verhaal verteld moet worden, hoeft gelukkig geen betoog.' Martijn Spruit in: Archievenblad 122 (2018) 8, p. 36-37.