Archiving Like A Feminist
Conference and workshop on archiving, gender and feminism.

Date: 15th and 16th May 2025
Time: 10:00 am to 5:00 pm
Venue: Archives at NCBS, National Centre for Biological Sciences - TIFR, Bangalore
Format: Hybrid
Organisers: Archives at NCBS, Museum of Art and Photography (MAP)
 

This two-day conference and workshop is hosted by the Archives at NCBS in collaboration with the Museum of Archives and Photography (MAP) to further work in India within the discipline of archival science.  

The conference will cover three key areas: a) capturing the history of women’s movements in India b) the challenges of archiving the lives of women across disciplines c) examining archival theory and methods using feminist methodologies to arrive at a roadmap for building inclusive archives. 

Archivists and historians alike have pointed to the subjectivity of archives, and their role in shaping what gets recorded as history and what gets left out. The contributions of women in public life, their work, including that of care, as well as the texture of their daily lives, is often missing from historical records. While the conference will tackle important questions of gender and representation in archives in India, it will also look beyond representation to interrogate conventional archival theory and practice, and ways in which it can be transformed by feminisms.      

Conference objectives: The conference and workshop hopes to facilitate conversations between feminists, archivists, historians, social scientists and users of the archive about the nature of archives and its role in preserving histories of women and people marginalised by caste, class, disability, gender and sexuality. Through exchange of experiences, ideas, hopes and best practices, they will help shape measures, theoretical frameworks and processes that will:
- introduce feminist theory and practices into archival workflow and structure
- critically examine the ways in which archives are shaped by feminist and queer epistemologies
- consider the challenges of archiving affect, care and emotional labour, and the experience of these
- offer a space where archivists, feminists and users of the archives can share their experiences, frustrations 
- address the gaps between expectations/aspirations and experiences of the archive
 

Schedule TBD

Contact: archives@ncbs.res.in