Feminist Webs Making Transgenerational Participatory Feminist History Niamh Moore CRESC, University of Manchester and Feminist Webs

Outline What is Feminist Webs? How did I get involved? What is research? / What is research for Feminist Webs? – who is it for? – who does it? – what is it for? – what are the outcomes/outputs? – Feminist Webs as a ‘boundary object’ What next for Feminist Webs?

What is Feminist Webs? Youth workers Young women Academics Artists, film-makers, practitioners, etc

Feminist Webs – A Herstory ‘Done Hair and Nails Now What?’ participatory transgenerational oral herstories; film ‘feminist webs the journey’ the tour, the archive, the zine, the postfeminist booklet, the banner, the animation women and girls are strong! Exhibition at the People’s History Museum, Manchester; The Feminist Webs print on demand book;

From the Young Women’s Group Allotment to Feminist Webs

Challenging the traditional academic research model Literature review Develop research questions Research design Plan methodology Carry out research Analysis and interpretation Findings/reports/publications

Feminist Webs as Participatory Research What is research Who does it Who is it for What is it for What are the outcomes and outputs

Out of the attic and into the archive young women created an archive and interviewed feminists to gather oral histories/herstories

Femzine and the Feminist Webs Book

Feminist Webs as a ‘Boundary Object’ Boundary object: ‘to mean a shared space, where exactly the sense of here and there are confounded’ (Star 2010: ).

‘boundary objects are a sort of arrangement that allow different groups to work together without consensus’ (Star 2010: 602)

Reflections – who is it for? – who does it? – what is it for? – what are the outcomes/outputs?

‘When translating feminist struggles and their achievements into theories, we would rather be better with/because of – than better than those who came before us’ (Bracke and Bellacasa 2004:314).

Feminist Webs – what next Lots of outputs so far Next Grant applications – academic and non- academic publications activities and events How will these be negotiated?

Feminist Webs – A Found Poem About forwardness About inter-connectedness Full of spaces And also lines which are the connections and the stories They hold people together like a net Points of understanding across generations A way of representing what feminism is and making links with other social justice movements Sticky: they hold people together But people can also get stuck in them Not unusual Not innocent: ask the fly!

Niamh Moore Feminist Webs