Towards a participatory historical geography: archival interventions, volunteer service, and public outreach in research on early women pilots

Some scholars doing research set in the present time and near past seek to ground their research in community-based agendas, for example, through various forms of participatory research. Due to the contemporary nature of participatory research, historical scholarship has not fit easily into these rubrics. But what if a historical geographer wanted to contribute to the community she was studying? Here I examine what such a ‘participatory historical geography’ might look like using as brief example my efforts to forward the agendas of women pilots who flew in the US in the late 1920s and early 1930s. I seek to show how—at least when the agendas of our research communities are known, when scholars are willing to make archival interventions themselves, and when we seek to make contributions other than traditional scholarly publications—historical geography can endeavor to adopt a participatory model. In this context, archival interventions can include organizing, contributing to, and creating archives; and research contributions can include volunteer service of various sorts. Though not all historical research can be participatory, and although all forms of participatory research present (ethical) challenges, I here argue for a participatory historical geography in order to advance historical agendas in ways that facilitate contemporary engagements, and enable historical geographers to reach broader publics while helping ground our scholarship in issues relevant to our communities of the past and present.