Publications

Publication details [#47641]

Bürgi, Lisia and Kristina Schulz. 2021. Communicating Through Books, Spaces and Personal Exchange: women’s bookshops as cultural translators (1970s–1990s). In Bracke, Maud Anne, Julia C. Bullock, Penelope Morris and Kristina Schulz, eds. Translating Feminism: interdisciplinary approaches to text, place and agency. London: Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 91–115.
Publication type
Chapter in book
Publication language
English

Abstract

This chapter focuses on the intertwined relationship between the women’s liberation movement (WLM) in Switzerland and women’s bookshops which offered feminist literature as well as space for discussions and exchange. It is argued that women’s bookshops played a crucial role in various translation processes that were important in order to establish the WLM as a locally embedded and transregionally operative social force which was at the same time oriented towards a transnational feminist network. Following a general overview of the WLM and women’s bookshops in Switzerland, the chapter focuses on how the latter acted as cultural translators on two levels. Firstly, the bookshops made a large range of feminist texts available to their clientele. Secondly, the bookshops managed to create an atmosphere of openness by making feminist texts and ideas available not only to activists but also to a broader public. Thanks to those strategies, over the years, some of the women’s bookshops successfully adapted to the ongoing changes in the WLM and the general book market—with all its ambivalences.
Source : Based on publisher information