IFTe - Intersections | Feminism, Technology & Digital Humanities

Transforming Archives: Intersectional Feminist Approaches to the Practice and Reading of Archives

Network Theme 2: Methods: Archiving and Communities
Maynooth University & Technological University of Dublin – February 2021

Archives and archival practice have a troubling history. At their worst, they have involved the reification of their objects, turning living cultural practices into decontextualised objects stripped of their richer purpose. Curation and collection involve decisions of value which have too often imposed dominant meanings and created exclusions from the historical narrative. Archives have been associated with othering and colonisation practices and the abstractions of masculinised thinking. With the dominance of archiving projects within Digital Humanities it is vital to understand how we may build more inclusive archives but also how we may break the models so that they can express different ideals. 

This set of workshops seek to examine the nature of archives from an intersectional feminist perspective, looking to explore and understand archives, curation, and archiving practices that reflect these principles. These workshops will bring together archivists, artists, curators, community organisations, and academics to identify the issues associated with digital archiving and to explore alternative models of curation, collection, storage, expression, and interaction for these practices. We see feminist archiving as a means to amplify, record, and safeguard marginalised voices, and of a method that pushes the boundaries of what we think archives are and what they should consist of. 

The first two workshops will showcase various alternative archives based on two themes – the first on community and institutional collaboration and the second on activist archiving practice – while the third workshop will be a hands-on feminist archiving activity.  

The event will conclude with a public talk hosted by our partner organisation, the Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA).  

Workshop 1:  Community and  institutional  collaboration  
Monday February 8th, 2pm-5pm  

This workshop will explore the building of new archives that engage with communities and institutions. Speakers include;

Veronica McKenzie, Haringey Vanguard, ‘Whose values matter in Collections? Archiving materials from BME LGBTQ+ communities’

Aileen O’Carroll, Digital Repository of Ireland, ‘Digital Preservation of Reproductive Health Resources: Archiving the 8th project’

Hannah Tiernan – Queer-in-Progress Timeline

Margaretta Jolly & Eleanor Careless, University of Sussex, ‘Mapping the Feminist Marketplace: Making A Digital Map of the Women’s Liberation Movement’

Workshop 2: Archivism 
Tuesday, February 9th, 2pm-5pm  

This workshop will explore archives as activism. Speakers include;
Orla Egan, Cork LGBT Archive, ‘Queer Archival Activism’

Leon Diop – Black and Irish Social Media Community

Seamus Nolan – Traveller Community Archive

Chair: Natalie Harrower, Director of the Digital Repository Ireland and IFTe Steering Committee.

Workshop 3: Community Archiving Workshop - What is feminist archiving? 
Wednesday February 10th, 2pm-4:30pm 

DIY feminist archival practices for researchers, with Niamh Moore and Sharon Webb and other team members from the Reanimating Data project. 

Workshop 4: Public Talk - hosted by Irish Museum of Modern Art  
Thursday February 11th, 8pm  Speaker: Dr. Tonia Sutherland – University of Hawaiʻi at Māno 
Digital Remains: Reflections on Race and the Digital Afterlife

Chair: Sharon Webb, University of Sussex, IFTe Co-I