‘Civil disobedience’ in the archive: documenting women’s activism and experience through the Sheffield Feminist Archive

Abstract

The study investigated what motivates feminist activists to engage in archiving and memory collecting activity, such as oral history projects, and what form such activity takes, including the extent to which they collaborate with formal archives. A case study of a feminist archiving project was undertaken: the Sheffield Feminist Archive project. Qualitative, semi-structured interviews with the five most active members of the project were conducted. The participants in this study saw their activity as a part of their feminist activism. They were motivated by a desire to increase the presence of women and feminists in the archival record. They hoped that the material they collected would help to change the way the public see women, feminism and gender relations. They chose to collaborate with a formal archive, Sheffield Archives, from the start of their archiving activity. They felt that this brought benefits to the project which enabled them to meet their aims. These included status and public identity, visibility and archival expertise. Despite their limited time, the participants saw themselves as having an active and multifaceted role in the collaboration including being a link with the feminist community, collecting material for the archive, publicizing the archive and challenging archival practice.

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