Auto/Biography Review

A Collector’s Item

Mich Page — 2024-05-06

Miss Hildred Bigwood (1921-2000), when I first knew her in the 1970s, was the botany technician in the biological sciences department at the University College of Wales, Aberystwyth. She was also a plant collector. Her life’s work was the creation of a remarkable herbarium that proved controversial when its final ‘home’ had to be settled. This paper problematises two methodological difficulties: writing an incomplete and yet justifiable biography when data are missing, and the ethical dilemmas posed by writing about a dead friend who is unable to give consent. Lives are entangled with other people and other things. Glimpses of a life, collected from other people’s memories offer insights but fail to provide descriptions free from distorting otherness. Tangible, supporting evidence: documents, photographs, and artefacts provide more definite biographic details. Such entanglements are messy but need to be exposed and analysed for what they are. There is one more social complication that threads its way through this biography, and that is the position of women within the university, complicated by notions of academic and hegemonic claims to scientific worthiness.

Raves and Close Shaves

Louise Owusu-Kwarteng — 2024-06-10

In this article, I reflect on my experiences in 1990s Rave culture as a young Black woman. This article incorporates Wright-Mills’ (1959) ‘Sociological Imagination’ to explore how the socio-historical events of the time shaped my involvement in the rave scene. Further, it explores how raving served as a form of intergenerational resistance against familial and community expectations. I was often a minority in certain rave scenes, considered predominantly White spaces. At the same time, I was regarded as a ‘misfit’ among my Black peers for ‘transgressing’ what they perceived as norms of Blackness, such as engaging in popular culture and music genres like Hip Hop and R’n’B. Through my experience, I consider debates concerning relationships between popular culture consumption and the construction of our ethnic and racial identities. Specifically, I explore how these elements are used to determine our ‘authenticity’ and identities as Black people. I also suggest that our experiences reflect the importance of recognising and celebrating the differences within and between Black people, including our life choices, such as music preferences.