When British poet and aphorist Elizabeth Gibson Cheyne described herself in Who’s Who as a suffragist, socialist and freethinker, she was actively constructing a public identity not just as a writer, but as an activist. But identities can’t be so neatly categorised and controlled. I have just uploaded a short paper discussing some of the shifts and contradictions in Gibson Cheyne’s self-created identity/ies, and how these can be interpreted.The paper also touches briefly on the often uncomfortable processes of negotiating and re-presenting my own identity: as a person working between disciplines, both inside and outside academia, while researching and shaping my version of someone who was a forgotten member of my own family.

More about Elizabeth Gibson Cheyne here.