About

My project investigates uses of dress as appearance and as individual object at Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp (1981-2000) to understand its fundamental role in creating non-violent protest actions. In 1981, a group of Welsh women formed a peace camp at RAF Greenham Common Airbase, near Newbury, England, to protest the housing of American Cruise missiles on British soil. This historic event is omnipresent in British cultural memory, but the protesters’ relationship to dress has not been recognised as a driver of its magnitude. Considering Greenham as an intrinsic part of the histories of women’s struggle for equal rights in Britain, I aim to showcase the power of dress to amplify ideals and ideologies and to construct a historical event of national significance.

I employ primary sources such as publications by Greenham women (Harford & Hopkins, 1984; Cook & Kirk,1983) to analyse various uses of dress at Greenham. To investigate dress as a creator of community and promoter of political views, I draw on the fields of dress history and social theory of dress (Parkins, 2002; Bartlett, 2019; Entwistle, 2015). I engage with the study of memory to understand the creation of personal memories and collective recollection (Huyssen, 2003; Augé, 2004). Cultural and political histories will provide context to examine the importance of Greenham in wider politics (Westad, 2018; Hogg, 2016). Analysis of extant objects (in West Berkshire Museum, Glasgow Women’s Library) and oral history will be used to reflect on the making, use and conservation of protest garments and will question ideas of identity and community at Greenham.

My research stems from my prolonged interest in the use of dress to embody identity and ideology in the twentieth century, which I embraced in my Masters thesis through the analysis of suffragettes’ material culture.