Description
Museum objects and exhibits provide crucial insights into gendered experiences of conflict and insecurity. Physical artefacts and material texts that are displayed in museums can reveal hidden stories about the diverse lives and experiences of women who have fought against violence and oppression and sought to promote peace and security. This paper foregrounds museum objects and exhibits as important sources of knowledge about gender, peace and security. We outline a bottom-up, feminist materialist methodology for identifying and analysing objects and exhibits of - rather than on - W/women, P/peace and S/security. Drawing on fieldwork undertaken in the North of England, we highlight two hidden stories of feminist peace activism and anti-colonial struggle. Overall, we argue that knowledge produced by and within museums can help reclaim the transformative vision behind the Women, Peace and Security agenda to achieve feminist peace and security.
