Acknowledgements
We would like to thank each of the contributors to this book who have patiently and diligently worked with the editorial team for almost four years, under some very challenging personal and collective circumstances – not least the ongoing pandemic. We thank each of them for their good humour, intellectual engagement and perseverance! It has been a genuine pleasure to be able to read such lively and insightful research, and we have sought to emphasize the unique and captivating voices of each of the authors in our editorial work. We hope that this has been successful.
This book began as a series of conversations in seminars at the University of Sheffield and pubs around the city between Hannah Parker, Dr Becca Mytton and Dr Elizabeth Goodwin. These informal chats later became the Gendered Emotions in History conference, hosted at the university in June 2018, which sought to bring wider perspectives to bear on the questions we had raised about the troubling intersections of gender and emotion. The conference featured a wide range of submissions and disciplines, all of which spoke to the ongoing political and social urgency of the theme, and whose ambition and interdisciplinarity served to drive this volume. We want to start by thanking all those who attended and presented at Gendered Emotions, including the keynote addresses from Thomas Dixon and Hannah Proctor. Your interventions and participation at that event laid the foundations for the work in this book. We are also grateful to the institutions and bodies who provided generous funding and support for this project, and in particular the funding provided for childcare and children’s items to make the conference ‘child-friendly’: the White Rose College of the Arts and Humanities, the Social History Society and the Royal Historical Society.
Finally, our thanks to University of London Press and in particular to our mentor Nick Witham and Books Manager Emma Gallon, whose support and guidance has made the sometimes lengthy editorial process enjoyable. We would also like to thank the editors, Elizabeth Hurren and Heather Shore, who have supported this project since first seeing it. Thank you too to our anonymous reviewers for their clear, engaged and supportive feedback, which helped shape the book into its final form.
Olga Andreevskikh: This work is dedicated to the brave women who kindly agreed to share their experiences for my case study and all the other courageous bisexual and transgender activists fighting for equal rights in Russia.
Emma Copestake: My work would not be possible without the generosity of the dock workers and their family members in Liverpool who helped me to understand the meaning of solidarity in new ways. My contribution here is also indebted to the kind academics and archivists who have encouraged me to keep going over the last few years, including both Hannah and Josh. My final thank you goes to my husband, family and friends for their endless love, support and reminders that life exists outside of research.
Josh Doble: My research is indebted to the generosity of many people in Kenya and Zambia. The staff at the National Archives of both countries must be given special mention for their patience with my relentless requests and their dedication to finding obscure records. A particular thanks has to go to the participants in this research, whose testimonies, photos, private archival material and open address books are what made this research possible. The distinct direction this research took was a direct result of my participants’ hospitality and willingness to engage. I cannot name specific individuals or family collections but there are key interlocutors in both countries who deserve special mention. I would like to think they know who they are.
Hannah Parker: I owe a debt of gratitude to friends, family and a number of academics, though there are two named dedications I’d like to make here. First, given the subject of my research, to the victims of the full-scale Russian military invasion of Ukraine. Second, to the contributors to this collection, for entrusting us with their excellent research.
Michael Rowland: This chapter is for Yousif Ali: the accelerator to my brake; the joy to my sadness. And for Lesley Rowland, my mother and very first role model.