'This special issue aims to generate new ways of theorizing social movement histories, using the critical lens of remediation. An interdisciplinary concept, remediation offers an ideal approach for considering social movement histories because it allows insights into the complex ebbs and flows of social and political change, in ways that avoid overly simplistic narratives of progress, loss, return, backlash, or cooptation. Remediation lets us think about the ways in which media production emerging out of identity-based social movements is a form of activism and, as such, as Bolter and Grusin put it, help shape and reform reality (56). The contributors to this special issue examine media ranging from print (life writing; novels; magazines; letters; newsletters; and other ephemera) to visual and audiovisual (music; movies; and television) to digital materials (BBS; online archives), arguing that these media forms, in the hands of activist media makers and/or members of marginalized identity groups, play a key role in helping to shape and document social movements, build coalitions and create interventions into wider social spheres often unsympathetic to the issues faced by people who face discrimination on the basis of gender, race, sexuality, ability, carceral status and/or HIV status. The essays in this volume productively expand upon, extend and critique understandings of remediation as elaborated within media and cultural studies.. (Introduction)
'During the 1980s Aboriginal Australians experienced setbacks in their quest for the restoration of their land rights. Neoliberal politics reframed such demands as special interests seeking to gain a material advantage at the expense of the general community and as a threat to the economic security of the nation. As a consequence, politicians failed to pass legislation that would formalize the national land rights system that would guarantee Aboriginal economic self-sufficiency. This paper argues that it was in this context that Aboriginal memoir emerged to prompt social action by recounting experiences of discrimination and exploitation erased by official history and by challenging the imposed racist stereotypes used to marginalize Aboriginal claims. These memoirs prompted sympathy and understanding among a broad readership, which enabled the formation of a political solidarity over the recognition of Aboriginal land rights. These memoirs also expressed a commonality of Aboriginal experience that served to unite an increasingly frayed Aboriginal activist movement eroded by neoliberal policies.' (Publication abstract)
