Intimacy, Violence and Activism

One of the joys of approaching an archive, particularly an archive of sexuality,
is that you don’t know what it will contain. But, on top of that, you also don’t
yet know how its contents will be able to be read. The best experiences of
archival encounter are when the sources are rich, engaging, and plentiful.
But there are also pleasures to be found for the historian when there is little
there, or when the meaning of the archives are uncertain. The joys of archival
research — whether the archive comes in the form of a set of personal papers,
a collection of photos, or a set of oral histories — are to found in the work
undertaken to comprehend the mysterious lifeworlds of other people.

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ISSN: 2202-2546

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