GENDER EQUALITY: UNGENDERING MEMORY AND MUSEUM PRACTICES

Museum collections have emerged from the need to organise and categorise the world, attempting to bring together incompatible and diverse practices and memories into a coherent
narrative. The binary axis of female/male, which is assumed as natural, helps to perpetuate
patriarchal values and marginalise people whose gender identity does not fit into this binary.
Gender categorisation is fundamental both for the collection of material and its interpretation, which contributes to its perpetuation. This often means that the male perspective is
privileged over the female and that other genders are not discussed or represented, which
maintains gender inequality and the exclusion of gender minorities. What would it mean to
question and explore gender categories in a museum setting? How do museum narratives
shift when we look at objects and trace their history from a broader understanding of gender?
In what ways are the strategies of care practiced in relation to the museum’s communities,
marginalized voices and, last but not least, internal processes of production and creation?
Through case studies of museum collections, art practices and activism, we aim to explore
possible methodologies and approaches to tracing alternative narratives of gender, female
empowerment and the hegemony of the essentialized gender binary. Special emphasis will
be given to methods of collaboration and co-creation with various publics in order to examine how to care for gender narratives and how to build infrastructures of care in an equitable and inclusive manner. The International Workshop on Gender and Museum Practices is
designed with the purpose of bringing together the international community of academics,
museum curators, researchers, activists, art practitioners, and interested parties to discuss
current research while providing the opportunity to share thoughts, exchange ideas, extend
the network and explore current and future research directions.
The workshop is co-funded by the COST Action “Trace as a Research Agenda for Climate
Change, Technology Studies, and Social Justice” (TRACTS) within the WG2 Traces and Social
Justice, and Slovenian Research Agency within the postdoctoral project Z6-3225 “Emancipatory Politics of Women’s Social Movements and the Postsecular Turn in Feminism”.
Please note that all sessions will be conducted exclusively in English, and there will be no
provision for translations or interpretation services.

Photo Credit: Laura Muñoz-Encinar

26 - 28 September 2023, Santiago de Compostela, Spain

26 September 2023

9:30h Welcome

Forensic Archaeology Laboratory

Trainers: Laura Muñoz-Encinar (INCIPIT CSIC); Zahira Aragüete-Toribio (University of Neuchâtel)

10:00- 11:00h Module 1: Forensic Archaeology

11.00h-11:30h Coffee break

11:30-13:30h Module 1: Forensic Archaeology

13:30-15:00h Break

15:00- 17:00h Module 2: Ethnography of objects

17:00-17:30h Break

17:30- 18:30h Module 2: Ethnography of objects

27 September 2023

Experimental Ethnography Laboratory (EEL)

Trainers: Iñigo Sánchez-Fuarros(INCIPIT CSIC); Zahira Aragüete-Toribio (University of Neuchâtel); Laura Muñoz-Encinar (INCIPIT CSIC)

10:00- 11:00h Module 3: Ethnography Fieldwork

11.00-11:30h Coffee break

11:30-13:30h Module 3: Ethnography Fieldwork

13:30-15:00h Break

15:00- 17:00h Module 4: Experimental Ethnography

17:00-17:30h Break

17:30- 18:30h Module 4: Experimental Ethnography

28 September 2023

Re-presentation Strategies in a Digital Age

Trainers: César Parcero Oubiña (INCIPIT CSIC); Laura Muñoz-Encinar (INCIPIT CSIC); Jesús García Sánchez (IAM CSIC); Jesús Jiménez Chaparro (University of Cantabria)

10:00- 11:00h Module 5: Introduction to the module and presentation of a Case Study

11.00-11:30h Coffee break

11:30-13:30h Module 5: New technologies for the study of the traces of conflicts

13:30-15:00h Break

15:00- 17:00h Module 6: Final remarks

18:00-19:30h Visit to Santiago de Compostela

20:00h Closure

Workshop Leaders

Laura Muñoz-Encinar INCIPIT CSIC

César Parcero Oubiña INCIPIT CSIC

Iñigo Sánchez Fuarros INCIPIT CSIC

Zahira Aragüete-Toribio University of Neuchâtel

Workshop Collaborators

Jesús García Sánchez IAM-CSIC

Jesús Jiménez Chaparro University of Cantabria

Host Institution

Institute of Heritage Sciences of the Spanish National Research Council (INCIPIT CSIC)

Fontán Building, block 4 Monte Gaiás, s/n

15707 Santiago de Compostela

Spain

https://www.incipit.csic.es

Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Lausanne

June 1-2, 2023 Climate Change Working Group

[Image: Le rebrousse-poll, nº 6-7, 1978. Archive Contestataires]

Archives are spaces of conflict where history and memory are constantly disputed. They tend to reproduce the political and cultural power of modernity. Yet, since the 1970s they have been largely challenged by post-structuralist critics, feminism, queer theory and decolonial discourses, among others, which have detected the exclusions, authoritarianism and epistemological roughness that traditionally operate in archival practice. At the same time, from these nodes of knowledge, various ways of subverting archives have been suggested, with proposals for counter-archives and anarchives. In the current context of ecological and energy crisis, it becomes urgent to include the ecosocial approach in the equation of critical analysis of the archive and its technologies. This workshop aims to question where, with which intensities, and how the traces of the ecological movement are studied and disseminated at the international level.

This two-day meeting intends to open a space to approach the traces of environmentalism without temporal or geographical restriction by three different, though complementary, ways.

1. Drawing attention to the usual lack of ecological specificity of archives. Although there are repositories created and managed by environmental groups, it is common to find the documents and graphic and audiovisual materials produced by the movement, or of importance for reconstructing its history, in other kinds of archives, like the one belonging to trade unions, foundations or governmental entities. Locating the spaces where the traces of ecologism lie is part of our interests.
2. Studying the structure and metabolism of archives. In the archival collections dwell the bases of the mindsets that allow us to think and understand the past of environmentalism, which are in permanent connection with the values, interests and needs of the present. These mental frameworks define cataloguing processes, heritage policies between the preservation and dissemination of archival documents. All this affects the current role of the memory of environmentalism. Rethinking how to access archives or to develop cultural policies beyond the logics of mere material accumulation, how to address the energy costs required to guarantee the material conditions (temperature, humidity or digitization processes) for document preservation, or how to experiment with ways of disseminating materials and forms of historical production are also central to us.
3. Providing examples of work with environmental archives from a multidisciplinary perspective. Be it through the activity of activist collectives or archivists concerned with environmental memory; from different academic branches, such as the history of toxics or visual culture; or through the practice of artists and curators committed to developing ways of recovering and making known the materials of environmental memory. The aim of this event is to share ways of working with and from the archive and to think collectively how to make visible the traces of ecological activism in its multiple historical, social, economic and environmental entanglements throughout history.

Funding: The organization can provide funding for a limited group of proposals. More information will be offered after the selection process.

Our last TRACTS Year 1 meeting is taking place on 10-11 October 2022 in the Ethnographic Museum in Cracow, Poland. The WG2 workshop focuses on various approaches to tracing visual and non-visual aspects of a landscape. The group explores a range of topics related to landscape tracking. Participants follow the paths of the landscape with short presentations outlining innovative, experimental perspectives.

By focusing on the case of peasant monuments of freedom from the 19th century in rural Central and Eastern Europe, the meeting sets out to interrogate the relations between materiality, social justice and inequality. By tracing this hidden cross-border history, we can begin to investigate the legacy of rural poverty and its entanglement with conteporary relations of violence and inequality in society today.

14–15 October 2022. Krakow, Poland
WG2 Meeting “Traces of inequality: Tracing hidden rural history”

This event consists of an online WG2 Working Group Meeting and a hybrid workshop about visual & material traces of resistance hidden in the landscape. It focuses on serfdom crosses – almost forgotten monuments of peasant freedom across Eastern Europe. #tractsresearch

6–7 October 2022. Madrid, Spain
WG1 and WG3 Meeting “Tracing (climate) crisis, visualizing change: Reimagining & activating a counter-atlas of the trace”

Tracing (climate) crisis, visualizing change: Reimagining & activating a counter-atlas of the trace

In this joint meeting, members of Working Groups 1 & 3 will discuss the elaboration of TRACTS (counter) atlas, thus initiating the TRACTS Atlas Curatorial Collective that will oversee the elaboration of the TRACTS Atlas, its articulation with the proposed book series, and its utility for the network’s broader mentoring goals. The two-day event will include separate workshop sessions for members of WG1 and WG3 that focus on the elaboration and discussion of pertinent bibliography regarding each group’s specific area of analysis and their connections with mapping, tracing, and creating atlas-inspired visualizations regarding the ethical, methodological, and conceptual approaches to the trace. #tractsresearch

International Workshop, Zagreb, Croatia, 9–10 September 2022

The international workshop Radical Heritage: Tracing Resistance in (Post)Socialist Europe was held in Zagreb on September 8 and 9, as part of the Working group 2: Traces and social justice. The workshop was organized by Sanja Horvatinčić (Institute of Art History) and Rui Gomes Coelho (Durham University). The event was supported by the Institute of Art History, and the Zagreb Architects Association.

Participants: Nenad Lajbenšperger, Eric Ušić, Lana Balorda, Patricia Manos, Martina Bobinac, Iva Jelušić, Petra Šarin, Rui Gomes Coelho, Marijana Hameršak, Frauke Mogli Seebass, Inês Moreira, Nela Milić, Bojan Mrđenović, David A. Calf, Sanja Horvatinčić.

The program of the workshop & the Book of Abstracts.

From the Call for Papers:

How do people make sense of wartime remains in today's societies?
How do heritage professionals mediate traces of war in community-based projects?
How do contemporary debates such as epistemic decolonization, new authoritarianisms and nationalisms influence the relationship between heritage professionals and communities?

Participants of this WG2 workshop explored the role of materiality in the construction of heritage discourses grounded on the Second World War, and other 20th century revolutionary, military and social conflicts. We are interested in surveying recent developments in the multidisciplinary field of critical heritage studies, and in exchanging experiences across different methodological traditions with a focus on the concept of trace in the context of modern conflicts. This should encourage us to rethink the role of heritage professionals in communities that are dealing with the legacies of recent conflicts or exposed once again to the threat of unrestricted violence. With this workshop we want to explore the ways in which we can critically mobilize the traces of conflict to support and advance claims for social justice.

13–15 May 2022, Warsaw, Poland, Academy of Fine Arts
WG2 Meeting on “Traces of sisterhood”

The workshop 'Traces of sisterhood' was a three-day meeting initiating a long-term project on tracing sisterhood as a form of social organisation. It explored the meanings of this concept, the ways in which it manifests itself, and how it could generate new forms of practice in the local communities and globally. #tractsresearch