Zines as history

This article acknowledges and contextualises the recent growth of interest in the history of zines and in zine production. Drawing on archival research on zines in the United States, Europe and across the UK it demonstrates that zine producers have themselves been key producers or historical knowledge and furthermore that contemporary political tensions, debates about the relationship between collective histories and icons, celebrities and role models, can be understood through the work of DIY zine producers. This piece argues that we can understand the history of ‘writing our own history’ differently if we move beyond the traditional stories of academic publication. It questions the relationship between individual icons (or key agents) in History and our collective identification with the past.