writing_womans_lives_symposium_paper_book_v2

BADGES OF HONOUR: CAPTURING NARRATIVES OF ACTIVISM AND
THE FORMING OF CAMPAIGNING IDENTITIES THROUGH ARCHIVING
EPHEMERA
Adele PATRICK *
Glasgow Women’s Library, a unique resource in Scotland with Lending Library, Archive and
Museum collections embarked on a new project, Badges of Honour in May 2013. The aim was
manifold but principally it aims were; to capture more of the stories and contexts behind the
hundreds of badges in the GWL museum collection, to ask women to contribute further badges and,
critically, to share the stories they associated with them online and add them to our archive. As in all
our history related projects an objective was to employ a feminist approach that sought to promote
the idea of women’s histories and lives and the ephemera that marked their (changing) identities
being of social historical importance. Since women have frequently been in the vanguard of political
change in Scotland, a further ambition was that the resulting oral and video testimonies would also
help to contribute to the knowledge of the diverse range of territories of feminist and equalities
activism.
The project has been ground breaking, enabling an expansion in the badge collection at GWL and,
through the process of capturing the stories that are associated with them, an understanding about
how these important but frequently overlooked political and social artefacts can be used to map the
first, second and third waves of feminist activism and the wide range of associated campaigns which
women have steered and developed in Scotland and Britain. The project has entailed the recording
of many video testimonies, the creation of photographic portraits of badge‐owners/donors and the
involvement of them, our volunteers and the staff team at GWL in the interpretation of items within
the collection.
Before I go on discussing the project in more detail it might be helpful to describe GWL, a little of
its work over the past two decades and its approach to working with women and their histories. With
the announcement that Glasgow was to be European City of Culture in 1990 a group of women
including myself were keen to ensure that when the international spotlight was turned on Glasgow’s
culture it would not find it represented solely by white men. At this time, the image of the city was
robustly masculine (for example the epithet for the burgeoning movement in the visual arts was
dubbed, significantly, the ‘Glasgow Boys’) 1 Women in Profile, a grass‐roots arts organisation was
established to try to ensure that women’s cultural contributions, histories and creativity were part of
the picture in 1990. Following a successful women’s arts and cultural festival in the City of Culture
year, Women in Profile evolved into Glasgow Women’s Library, launching in 1991 in small premises
in a city centre neighbourhood . From the outset the organisation was a crucible where women with
diverse backgrounds and life experiences could meet and where very different histories and stories
of life in Glasgow as women could be shared and collected. Although academics were involved, this
was a project owned as much by local women, women who were experiencing poverty, and women
who had little or no social, cultural or economic capital. This rare hybridity in the users and
stakeholders of the Library has been fostered and developed over the past 2 decades and accounts
for what many have attributed to the organisation as its ‘special ingredient’ 2 . The Library’s users and
its collections have steadily grown since its inception, broadening its range of services, learning
programmes, specialist staff and collections. The organisation’s commitment to ensure all women
are equally welcomed has led to diversification in approaches and strategies to engage and
*
Glasgow Women's Library - Glasgow, UK
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