Finding Women in the Archives: Experiences and Stories
from Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe
Deadline September 15, 2014
In the early decades of women’s and gender history as an academic
discipline, feminist historians devoted a lot of time and effort to
finding historical sources by and about women and making those sources
available to a wider audience. It turned out that women’s absence in the
historiography was not primarily due to a lack of sources but was
rather a consequence of (mostly male) historians’ conceptual frameworks
and assumptions about what counted as “history.” There is currently a
strong interest in rethinking archives, both as official institutions
and repositories of documents and in the broader sense of collections
holding “traces of the past,” sometimes put together with the help of
new technologies.[1] Recent publications challenge the older assumption
that archives are neutral and fixed repositories of
information and instead reconceptualize them as “artifacts of history”
(in Antoinette Burton’s words), shaped by material circumstances, state
interests, war and politics, the decisions of those who deposit
materials and of archivists, and much more. In addition to historians
rethinking archives, the on-going digital revolution has a huge impact
in the archival world. More and more archival descriptions and primary
sources are becoming available on-line.
We invite historians of women and gender in the region of Central,
Eastern and Southeastern Europe to reflect on their archival experiences
and the issues mentioned above. Questions we are interested in include,
but are not limited to:
– What is the state of the archives in the country you are
working on and how has this influenced the questions historians ask, the
kind of narratives they can tell and, in general, what counts as proper
history? How has the archival landscape shaped research on women’s and
gender history?
– How and to what extent has the specific nineteenth- and
twentieth-century history of the region influenced the state and
availability of archives, both more generally and specifically with
respect to the history of women?
– Have efforts been made to make women’s records visible and
available?
– Have you developed specific research strategies to find
traces of women or to work around the limited sources available?
– Did you make exciting discoveries when looking for women in
the archives? Sometimes a single document is enough to change our
historical understanding of women’s presence and agency; are there
examples of such findings in CESEE and their impact on our
interpretations?
– What is the role of oral history research and the creation
of oral history archives in developing women’s and gender history in the
region?
– What counts as an archive, what do historians regard as
“reliable sources,” and how do they deal with different forms of
“evidence”?
– Are efforts being made to create and maintain archives of
other previously marginalized groups?
– Does the digital revolution lead to a greater availability
and visibility of women’s archives/sources relevant for women’s and
gender history?
In addition to the specific theme of Finding Women in the Archives, we
welcome submissions on all topics related to women’s and gender history
in CESEE on an on-going basis.
Submissions of up to 8,000 words (including notes) can be sent to
Francisca de Haan (Aspasia Editor-in-Chief) at dehaanf@ceu.hu or to
Melissa Feinberg at mfeinberg@history.rutgers.edu
For more information, please write to one of the editors or visit
http://journals.berghahnbooks.com/asp/, where you can also download the
Aspasia Guidelines for Authors.
[1]See for example A. Burton, ed.,Archive
Stories (2005); N. Chaudhuri et al, eds., Contesting Archives (2010);
and T. Zanish-Belcher and A. Voss, eds., Perspectives on Women’s
Archives (2013).
Francisca de Haan
Central European University
dehaanf@ceu.hu