"We Want Recognition" : FSF-Community Forum Insights

at the Sussex Digital Humanities Lab, the FSF Sussex team held a community archives forum, the second in the FSF series of community forums (the first held in Nov. 2022 in Dublin).Facilitated by Irene Fubara-Manuel, project Co-I, the session was designed as an open, informal conversation with members of a variety of local, and regional, critical community archives and heritage groups.Participants (listed below and credited as contributors to this piece) provided some background to their work, and responded to prompts related to the challenges they, and their respective community heritage group, faced, as well as the type of support they envisaged useful from institutions and projects like Full Stack Feminism. OverviewHosted at the Sussex Digital Humanities Lab, we invited a number of critical community and archive managers, archivist, creators, and volunteers.The majority of participants were already known, or indeed had worked with, members of the the FSF Sussex team, and were asked to participate because they specifically worked heritage which represent traditional marginalised, silenced or erased histories.This sentiment was articulated in our invite to individuals as follows:A key aim of our project is includ[ing] multiple voices and perspectives, to address multiple and intersecting forms of oppression.FSF seeks engagement with communities, particularly those communities that have been marginalised, excluded and silenced.For us this is a listening and learning exercise where we hope to learn from community digital archive practitioners.Individuals in attendance (and in no particular order) included: Veronica McKenzie -Haringey Vanguard 'a BME LGBTQ+ History project focused on the history and contributions of Haringey-based community activists in the 1970s -1990s, work whose influence was felt well beyond the borough'.Roni Guetta -Queer Heritage South/Queer in Brighton ' is a digital community archiving project, celebrating and promoting the rich cultural life of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Intersex and Queer (LGBTIQ+) people in Brighton & Hove'.Rhoda Adum Boateng -Black Cultural Archives 'collect, preserve and celebrate the histories of people of African and Caribbean descent in the UK and to inspire and give strength to individuals, communities, and society'.Topher Campbell -rukus!Archive aims 'to collect, preserve, exhibit, and otherwise make available to the public historical, cultural, and artistic materials related to the Black lesbian, gay bisexual and trans communities in the United Kingdom'. Full Stack FeminismWe Want Recognition" : FSF-Community Forum Insights 3We had a number of questions we intended to explore during the session: Largely, however, these questions were answered without any prompting from the facilitator, leading to a freeflowing and informal conversation.This ease of discussion was a result of the rapport and mutual regard that had already been established between the participants and team members.Therefore, the forum offered a distinct experience for the participants to build solidarity with other community archivists and collectively reflect on their previous collaborations, and experiences (as described below), with institutions.What follows is a summary of the conversation organised around a number of key themes and subjects.