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In this chapter, I address the issues in doing a feminist ethnography based on the archives of a lesbian feminist community structured around music. In doing so, I grapple with questions central to archival research with marginalized social movement communities. I pose these questions as moments of interrogation where I draw on personal experience as well as literature on archival research to create a framework aimed at social movement researchers who are considering or doing archival work. These interrogations cover three broad areas and apply to different moments in the research process. First, what are the origin stories of social movement archives? Second, how can researchers construct the stories of marginalized and vulnerable communities? Third, how can we access the voices of community members found in the archives? To answer these questions, I identify how conceptual tools such as identifying community boundaries and documenting types of interaction can aid a scholar in the research process.

Moving images represent a category of material which has historically received short shrift in most libraries and archives. Film, video, and now digital images form a significant part of many library and archival collections, however, and can be found in many formats and genres. Despite the ubiquity of such media in cultural institutions, the majority of libraries and archives owning collections of moving images have neglected these holdings—with the specific exception of those few archives devoted primarily to the care and preservation of moving images.

Purpose – This chapter explores various approaches to historical methods as they relate to sport and physical culture research.

Design/methodology/approach – The chapter discusses various paradigmatic approaches to historical methods (reconstructionist, constructionist and deconstructionist) and takes up current debates related to archives, newspapers, photographs and oral history as they relate to the method. Drawing on these discussions, I outline various approaches to designing a sport and physical culture project using historical methods, focusing on my work on women's industrial sport in the 1920s and early 1930s.

Findings – I discuss how data evolved from the method and how I made choices about the inclusion and exclusion of materials. The chapter concludes that historical methods are tedious, complex and messy but also exciting and insightful ways to do research. I also conclude by encouraging the researcher to be reflexive and aware of one's ‘positionality’ as a researcher and embrace the historical process.

Originality/value – The chapter is original work. It is not so much a prescriptive ‘how-to’ guide for historical research, but it works to take up current debates in historical methods. It also endeavours to engage students and scholars alike as they consider their research projects and the potential value of historical methods.

In 1971 the second volume of Advances in Librarianship contained a chapter titled “Oral History: Problems and Prospects.” Written by Louis Starr, then director of the oral history program at Columbia University, it offered a wide-ranging assessment of a field of work that was just beginning to coalesce. The first national colloquium on oral history had been held only 5 years earlier, in 1966, and the term oral history had not achieved the popular distinction it enjoys today.

This chapter proposes an insight of the involvement of children in sustainability activities at the African Network for Policy Research and Advocacy for Sustainability (ANPRAS), a non-governmental organisation (NGO) established in Mauritius and affiliated with the African Union. The objective is to demonstrate that children, as ambassadors, and through civic actions, can assume leading positions to remind communities of their responsibilities towards the achievement of sustainability goals. The methodology is based on desk-based research, archived documents at ANPRAS office and information from its website. Data were analysed using the interpretivist paradigms. The overall findings show that children, as sustainability ambassadors, can act as potential agents of change, as they play pivotal roles in decision-making of their parents. Engaging children in sustainability actions transforms children into sustainability advocates and in return, they are empowered to rope in their parents, relatives, friends and peers. Children as sustainability transformers have successfully demonstrated how they aligned themselves with the philosophy of ANPRAS: a small step in sustainability, a significant step in philanthropy. Unlike a number of studies which portray children as undermined members of the community, this chapter by shows that children in Mauritius occupy a leading position in civic actions and sustainability activities organised by ANPRAS provide anecdotal evidence on children's pivotal roles in attaining sustainability goals. The chapter advocates for children empowerment which should be a core component of sustainability initiatives, as children's support is required to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). As a result, recommendations from this chapter give sufficient substance to explain that children are neither passive nor powerless. The conclusion of this chapter serves as inspiration to other NGOs and organisations seeking to engage children, as ambassador in sustainability initiatives.

We draw on an in-depth investigation into the phenomenon of community radio in India to identify the emergence of an institutional logic in a field. We delineate five stages of emergence, starting with problematization of dominant logics and ending with formation of an institutionally complex field. Further, we highlight how such a process results in organizational forms that reflect ongoing struggles among dominant logics and the emerging logic. We contribute to neoinstitutional studies on the emergence of social objects and also draw the attention of emergence theorists to the contested manner in which emergence takes place in the social world.