The UNESCO Memory of the World (MoW) programme was established in 1992, aiming to facilitate the preservation of the world’s documentary heritage, assist universal access, and increase awareness worldwide of the existence and significance of the documentary heritage. As of today, the MoW International Register contains 426 documentary heritage inscriptions from all over the world, 109 of which are from Asia and the Pacific region.
Gender equality is one of UNESCO’s global priorities. It refers to equal rights, responses and opportunities of women and men. The priority calls for the integration of a gender perspective into all programmes and activities. However, only very few inscriptions in the MoW Registers address or promote gender equality in society or history.
The recently launched UNESCO’s Gender Equality Baseline Study of Memory of the World in Asia-Pacific demonstrates that there are only four inscriptions in the MoW Registers that highlight a gender dimension, and illustrates the lack of gender perspectives in the MoW inscribed documents. As one of the recommendations, the study suggests to “identify gender equality as a key theme for potential joint nominations, or as a thematic category across registers”.
The survey:
The survey below aims at identifying existing documentary heritage collections in the Asia-Pacific region that contain gender-related stories or that portray the achievements of women in histories. Special attention will be paid to the records and documentary heritage that tell ‘her-story’ within a view to facilitating the inclusion of gender equality as a key component for future MoW activities.
The results of the survey will be used to develop an online or offline exhibition on ‘Women in histories’ that can be showcased on the occasion of the MOWCAP 2020 General Meeting in Bangkok tentatively scheduled for 24-26 November.
UNESCO wants to have as many countries as possible represented in the exhibition and is interested in collections from the Asia-Pacific region that that tell us women’s achievements in histories, contain gender equality-related facts or events, or records that tell ‘her-story’ whether or not these collections are inscribed on UNESCO’s Memory of the World Registers.
Should you have any further question, please contact yu.hu@unesco.org.
Survey link: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/MoWWomenInHistory