We tend to be told that feminist history happened in disconnected chunks – in 1st, 2nd, 3rd and now 4th “waves”. While there were certainly generational differences, if we peel back the curtains on this one failed reform in Elizabeth’s Legacy Paper [the women’s library], what we find is a rich history of multiple generations of feminists, whatever their differences, all working together to protect and preserve feminist memory – knitting the feminist past, present and future together – all campaigning for a women’s library and archive.

This blog begins a new series, edited by Vera Mackie and Sharon Crozier-De Rosa, dedicated to exploring the role of color and emotions in the history of social movements.

IMAGE: WOMANPOWER: A SYMBOL OF THE 1970S WEST GERMAN WOMEN’S MOVEMENT (2006). IMAGE VIA WIKIMEDIA COMMONS.

Protests around public memory reveal much about agency and power differentials as some groups demand and effect change while others remain silent and invisible. Who gets to decide about who is remembered and what form that takes? Who feels entitled to demand that the memory landscape change?

There is a complex relationship between historical narratives and the emotions of ideologies and social movements. Crucially, the nature of this relationship can be racialised, ethnicised, classed and gendered.

Political activists often cite historical precedents to produce emotion and affect designed to inspire participation in the cause. They engage in an emotional practice, to use Monique Scheer’s concept, through working to elicit feelings to spur protest.

But what happens when activists need specific historical narratives to suit their particular causes and these histories are not well known?

Or, if these histories are purposely silenced, omitted from the collective memory of a community or nation, or distorted to suit a dominant culture or authority?

How then can recollecting the past do the emotions work of protest?