Collecting Activism Archiving Occupy Wall Street

<p><em>Collecting Activism Archiving Occupy Wall Street</em> explores the material collections produced by participants of Occupy Wall Street in 2011 that bear witness to the experience and agency of ‘the 99%’.</p><p></p><p>Examining processes of collection development as a lens through which to investigate the sociology of protest and reform movements the book questions what contribution a dual study of the material culture of dissent and the production of a collection hosting the material culture of dissent might offer to a range of disciplines and practices. It asks if and how a collections-based study can test the propositions tactics and limits of activism from archival museological and political perspectives.</p><p></p><p>Collecting Activism Archiving Occupy Wall Street draws from interdisciplinary fields including museum studies collection studies archive studies cultural studies and public history. It will be a valuable resource for scholars and practitioners engaged with contemporary cause-based collecting activist archiving public history and the cultural politics and sociology of social reform movements. It models strategies for ‘activating’ historical archives and collections-based data and for engaging with autoethnographic records to represent and analyze the material residue of protest and reform movements today.</p>