ALES Communications of Archives in Public History - Part One (March 2024)
Speakers: Professor Alan Lester, Lorna Steele-McGinn and Dr Philip Milnes-Smith
The Archives for Learning and Education Section are holding a series of three events in 2024 on the communication of archives as public history. The stories within archives are communicated to individuals and groups in the reading room, in learning activities, and through informal presentation and publication in, for example, webinars and blogs. The sessions will consider the impact of public histories and showcase examples of these activities.
Our speakers are:
Professor Alan Lester: “Researching, Talking and Writing About British Colonialism in a Time of Culture War” (view on this video)
Academic historians of colonialism have been caught up in a political maelstrom that we could never have anticipated just a few years ago. In the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement and the backlash against it, with much of the press labelling us 'anti-British', and with the publication of a best-selling moral justification of the Empire dismissing us as 'anticolonial' fanatics, our specialism has left the ivory tower to settle at the centre of the culture wars. In this talk he will set out the challenges that those of us who pursue truthful, evidence-based research using primary sources now face, and how some of us are seeking to adapt and respond.
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Lorna Steele-McGinn: “A good use of time: taking archives into prison” (view Lorna Steele-McGinn in the part two video)
For the last five years, the Highland Archive Service has run workshops in HMP Inverness in partnership with Fife College, who deliver offender learning programmes in all of Scotland’s prisons. Working with remand, convicted, enhanced and protection prisoners, they have looked at documents relating to the First and Second World Wars, crime and punishment, mental health, and slavery. This partnership has enabled them to speak about mental health archives with those who have been resident in secure mental hospitals, to discuss stories of crime and the justice system with those who are immersed in it today, and to reflect on the impact of war with prisoners who have seen military action in recent years. These sessions have used archives as a conduit to create a space for open conversation and each has influenced the way they communicate their collections to audiences with varying life experiences subsequently.
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Dr Philip Milnes-Smith: “How would I know, why should I care?”: Public history of those who fall in the gaps between our records (view Philip Milnes-Smith in the part two video)
Understandably, archives struggle to disgorge records that either were never created or, if they did once exist, no longer survive, whether that loss was accidental, or the documents were simply not deemed important enough to preserve. While it is right that we acknowledge the limitations arising from gaps and silences, that should not condemn us to telling stories only about the white men, often presumptively non-disabled and straight, who are much better represented in our collections. Drawing on experience telling more inclusive histories across a range of projects and outputs, Philip Milnes-Smith shares his learning from each about responsibly reconstructing under-documented lives and making them publicly accessible.