University of Amsterdam Students Research VBW Case Study
In January 2022, students of the University of Amsterdam MSc in Archival and Information Studies (led by Dr Annet Dekker), researched the Vrouwen Bouwen Wonen network archive as a case study at Het Nieuwe Instituut.
25 April 2022
Ella Bailey, Emma Brent, Ranish Balak, and Robrecht Haex, students of the MSc Archival and Information Studies (led by Dr Annet Dekker) at the University of Amsterdam, researched Het Nieuwe Instituut's Collection in January 2022, in particular the Vrouwen Bouwen Wonen network archive as case study (and its implications in the planned tools Archival Care Rider, and the HNI acquisition document Archival Processing Plan+).
/"The term network-archive was chosen to describe the VBW archive at an early stage of the process of thinking about and acquiring parts of the archive. However, the implication of this term has not been expanded upon yet. What exactly is meant by a network-archive? This question is especially relevant because it touches upon two domains: archival practice and an understanding of the VBW movement./"
From: Vrouwen Bouwen Wonen: A Network Archive Case Study Report, by Ella Bailey, Emma Brent, Ranish Balak and Robrecht Haex)
The Vrouwen Bouwen Wonen network archive enables us to better understand the situated, kaleidoscopic map of national and international women's movements, work, and feminist design strategies in spatial practice - particularly from the 1980s to the early 2000s. The archive, the practitioners involved, the way their network was structured, their modes of operation and outputs challenge the institutional operations carried out up until this point in Het Nieuwe Instituut.
In this UvA course project, the emphasis was on creating an inventory/index within the Archive/Archival processing+ plan for one of these case studies, the recently acquired Vrouwen Bouwen Wonen network archive. Bringing the Vrouwen Bouwen Wonen archives together creates a collection that offers a much broader picture of the feminist and emancipatory ideas in architecture and urban planning, significant for architectural heritage, and thus has greater impact than individual source material. The urgency in this case is recognised by Het Nieuwe Instituut in the attainment of the first Vrouwen Bouwen Wonen archive. Het Nieuwe Instituut also has the ambition to propose ways to deal with sensitive and under-narrated archival material, giving handles and best practices on how to approach material in its Collection. In doing this, we are relating to propositions like Words Matter, by RCMC/Tropenmuseum.
The proposed networked inventory builds on the existing policy of Het Nieuwe Instituut and its Archive/Archival processing plan (archiefbewerkingsplan) and incorporating insights from this course and learnings from the Collecting Otherwise donor-institution relationship-tool Archival Care Rider. Explicitly, through the Archival Care Rider, we strive to: gather additional information to the documents handed over, create archival spaces where multiple voices on the sources can co-exist, offer co-constituted ideas on caring for and maintaining of the archive and underlining its current and future relevance.