The Future of Women’s and Gender Research: Digital Lives in the Swedish Archives

The future of historical women’s and gender research is uncertain for two reasons. First, the digitization of society affects how women and gender are represented online. Questions about what can and should constitute “an archive” need answering, particularly for women’s and gender activism, which is no longer tied to formal associations and often spans the physical/digital divide. This raises new ethical and legal issues related to GDPR and the private ownership of communication platforms where activist work occurs. Second, what counts as “women’s and gender historical material” is unstable. Current research emphasizes intersectionality and multiculturalism, often critiquing the whiteness and middle-class normativity of earlier feminist scholarship. At the same time, activists disagree on the meaning and application of these concepts, creating tensions within feminism that do not always align with scholarship focused on narrower research questions. This exploratory article examines archival acquisition policies in Swedish cultural heritage institutions from a feminist “information activism” perspective, drawing on community archive research to assess whether Swedish institutions are preparing to collect future women’s and gender archival materials and what kinds of women’s and gender histories these materials will make available to future researchers.