Experiments in democratic participation: feminist printshop collectives

This article examines the output and practices of two London-based feminist printing collectives that operated between the 1970s to the early 1990s and for whom the principles of democratic participation and access were central. Their activities are discussed in relation to specific, changing and sometimes challenging politic-cultural contexts in which they existed.

Abstract:
Relatively cheap and accessible, digital technologies have facilitated both social movements and the individual ‘citizen’ commentator not only in the production of alternative and critical discourses but also in the potential to connect to a global public. As Jenny Kidd in a recent issue of this journal has noted (along with many others), much has been and continues to be made of the ‘democratic potential’ of accessible networked information technologies. However, little over 30 years ago direct access to simple printing technology was also perceived as facilitating contestatory and empowering alternatives to the forms and practices of dominant media and culture. Print, it should be remembered, was in many parts of the world and for much of the twentieth century (at the very least), the main form for radical, democratic and alternative critical media practice. This article examines the output and practices of two London-based feminist printing collectives that operated between the 1970s and early 1990s and for whom the principles of democratic participation and access were central. Their activities are discussed in relation to the specific, changing and sometimes challenging, politico-cultural contexts in which they existed.