Re-bordering UK Feminist Video in the 1980s. Cross-border Exchanges and Reflexivity in a Digital and Archive-based Project

Abstract

This article discusses the benefits and limitations of the use of digital humanities tools in the context of transnational research in women’s film and television history, with a particular attention to issues of positionality, cross-border circulation, and exchange. To do so, it details on the methodology and results of a research project reconstructing the transnational impact of the collaborations between women producers and practitioners and UK broadcasters in the context of the UN Decade of Women (1975-1985). The investigation, funded by FIAT/IFTA (International Federation of Television Archives), analyses a group of programmes from the BFI archives by producing data-visualisations such as maps and network analysis generated through the collection of geographical, biographical, and chronological information. The goal of the study is offering a deeper understanding of transnationalism in the context of local television productions, while avoiding risks of fragmentation and methodological nationalism. However, while digital tools and data visualisations helped the identification of recurring tropes and transnational collaborations, the process of data collection and the visual aids themselves made evident the persistence of problematic geographies of knowledge and representation, that would require a broader assessment through collaborative, cross-national investigations.