Challenging White Feminist Histories: (Anti-)Racism in the Historical Culture on post 1970-women’s movements in Dutch-speaking Belgium

The historiography on post-1970 women’s movements in Dutch-speaking Belgium lacks a focus on (anti-)racism. This research broadens this perspective by using the framework of intersectionality and transnational feminism as a critical inquiry, while simultaneously respecting the genealogy of both frameworks which were inherently connected to aspirations of social justice. This is translated to three interrelated research objectives that are overarched by the meta-historical concept of historical culture. First, this research analyses the historical culture wherein blindness to (anti-)racism in the historiography of post-1970 women's movements has developed by focusing on three influential domains: the memoirs of white progressive-leftist feminists, the academic culture focusing on post-1970 women’s movements, and the archives focusing on feminism and social movements. Second, this research challenges structural whiteness in historiography by analyzing the marginalized historical culture produced by those actors who, because of their focus on both anti-sexism and anti-racism, remained unnoticed in historiography. Third, this research analyses a 'historical counterculture' of epistemic activism against the blindness to (anti-)racism in normative historiography and wonders how this research too can relate to aspects of epistemic justice.