As I said when speaking on behalf of the Women’s Liberation Music Archive (WLMA) in the workshop ‘Archives and Activism: Knowing our Past – Creating our Future’ at 2014’s Feminism in London conference, they ‘are not about preserving history in aspic, or rosy-tinted nostalgia.’ WLMA documents feminist music-making in the 1970s/80s, and is the fruit of discussions among musicians and activists who generously donated time, money and material in the belief that it’s important to illustrate the role of culture within political movements. We want these archives to be seen not as reliquaries, but as resources in our ongoing struggles, useful in the continuing quest for the ending of women’s oppression. Our collections provide insights into the aims, achievements and processes of the movement and show how it was sustained at grassroots level by thousands of women – many of whom did not become well-known, since they never attracted the attention of the mainstream media. The importance of taking this task seriously has been elucidated by Jalna Hanmer, and many have worked tirelessly on collecting and cataloguing information, making it available to new generations of activists, students and historians. Yet her words resonate strongly with me, illuminating some questions I want to explore here.Īrchiving the history of the WLM is well-established, as we who experienced that era believe it crucial to ensure that our movement is not lost to history. The context in which bell hooks writes is very different from mine. I am still the colonizer, the speaking subject, and you are now at the center of my talk (bell hooks, Yearning: Race, Gender and Cultural Politics). Tell it back to you in such a way that it has become mine, my own. And then I will tell it back to you in a new way. No need to hear your voice when I can talk about you better than you can speak about yourself. Can our approach be based on trust alone? Frankie Green shares some thoughts on feminism, archiving and accountability. The stewardship of feminism’s collective memory raises all kinds of ethical questions.
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