Challenging Amnesia in the Historical Culture of Feminism in Belgium (1970s-1980s)

Start - End 
2021 - 2026 (ongoing)
Type 
Department(s) 
Department of History
Research Focus 
Research Period 
Research Region 

Tabgroup

Abstract

Current academic historiography on feminism (1970s-1980s) in Flanders is characterized by amnesia about the role of intersecting power systems such as race, sexuality, and class in feminist activism. This research challenges this polished narrative on three levels – each built on a combination of the concepts of historical culture and information activism and in dialogue with the broader western historical context and academic debates. First, this research makes the underlying amnesia in normative historical culture explicit by analyzing hegemonic narratives that constitute academic historiography on feminism (1970-1980s) through an intersectional angle. Furthermore, this research embeds the constitution of these narratives in a broader context of institutionalized information activism in Flanders, namely the published memoirs of progressive-leftist feminists, the academic research culture focusing on feminism, and archival institutions focusing on feminism and social movements. Second, this research analyzes the marginalized historical culture produced by those historical actors (1970s-1980s) who, because of their intersectional approach, remained unnoticed in current academic historiography on feminism. Again, this research zooms in on information activism, focusing specifically on processes of collective labor of organizing/storing/providing access to information on intersecting oppression systems, and therefore serving as the backbone of social movements. Third, this research analyzes a historical counterculture of contemporary retrospective knowledge activism on the marginalized historical culture. Here, I embed my research in a larger research tradition that has been continuously pointing out amnesia in the normative historical culture and experimented with several strategies to challenge this. More specifically, I zoom in on several noninstitutionalized research initiatives and archival experiments in Belgium and wonder how this research project itself relates to aspects of epistemic (in)justice.

People

Supervisor(s)

Phd Student(s)