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Scientific Article details

Title Fashioning DIY digital archives: Unsettling academic research to centre garment workers' voices
ID_Doc 10501
Authors Hanlon, M; Karels, M; Moore, N
Title Fashioning DIY digital archives: Unsettling academic research to centre garment workers' voices
Year 2024
Published International Journal Of Fashion Studies, 11, 1
DOI 10.1386/infs_00103_7
Abstract Recent calls for decentring Eurocentric frameworks across fashion studies, alongside growing commitments to worker rights, calls for a circular economy, waste reduction and more sustainable materials draw attention to the complex and intractable social, environmental and political challenges facing the global sector. Here we point out how academic research is also implicated in reproducing inequalities, through practices of data collection, analysis and knowledge dissemination. Specifically, in the case of fashion, how worker representation, and indeed worker control over representations of their lived experiences, including labour activism, is lacking in academic research. In this article, we argue that DIY Academic Archiving can be utilized by academics, including fashion scholars, as a powerful tool for remaking fashion research. We propose unsettling usual practices around data management, as well as redirecting current moves for open research data. Turning instead to inspiration from radical archival theory and practice, we explore the potential for co -creating open -access digital archives of research data - here workers' own stories - to open up possibilities for workers to be more involved in the creation of public narratives about fashion. While not a panacea for resolv- ing all the ills of the fashion industry, we see research processes where workers have more control over their own stories, and how they are used, as a critical step in reimagining fashion scholarship.
Author Keywords archival research; fashion; feminist ethic of care; garment workers; open data; open research; research ethics; reuse of qualitative data
Index Keywords Index Keywords
Document Type Other
Open Access Open Access
Source Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI)
EID WOS:001218462500009
WoS Category Humanities, Multidisciplinary
Research Area Arts & Humanities - Other Topics
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