Olive and me in the archive: a Black British woman in an archival space

Longley, Oumou (2021) Olive and me in the archive: a Black British woman in an archival space. Feminist Review, 129 (1). 123 - 137. ISSN 0141-7789

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Abstract

This article aims to explore how the archival life of Olive Morris might radically rebuff the devaluation of Black womanhood and identity in Britain. Harnessing a Black feminist framework, I approach Lambeth Archives, where the Olive Morris Collection is found as a therapeutic space. Through an understanding of Olive as complex, I disrupt hegemonic expectations of Black women and propose that within the space of this research, Black womanhood be allowed the freedom of self-definition. In a conglomeration of the documents and voices of the community that remembers Olive, marginalised epistemologies are legitimised. Their sometimes-conflicting accounts generate an unbounded image of Olive as a figure of Black British women’s history that harbours meaning as it is mobilised in social consciousness. Incorporating my own auto-ethnographic reflections, I explore the internal and external impact of Olive and my existence in this archival space.

Item Type:	Article
Official URL:	https://journals.sagepub.com/home/fer
Additional Information:	© 2021 The Author
Divisions:	Gender Studies
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HT Communities. Classes. Races H Social Sciences > HQ The family. Marriage. Woman H Social Sciences > HN Social history and conditions. Social problems. Social reform
Date Deposited:	15 Mar 2022 15:27
Last Modified:	02 Nov 2024 08:30
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/114362

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