Problematizing Sources: Wednesday 2nd December 2015
Our first workshop of the 2015/16 academic year was attended
by postgraduate students from Northumbria, Newcastle, and Durham universities.
HistoryLab North East would like to thank everyone who attended, our presenters
and chairs, Laura Hutchinson from the Northumbria University Graduate School for
running a great training session, and the Graduate School for funding the
event. Thank you to the organisers Sarah Collins, Annie Foster, Lara Green, and
Shane Smith for arranging the event. Follow HistoryLab North East on Twitter
(@historylabne) or Facebook (www.facebook.com/HistoryLabNorthEast)
to find out more about future events or email historylab.northeast@gmail.com to
join our mailing list.
Tom Lowman (Durham University) started the first session
with a discussion of the challenges of researching Uganda under Idi Amin’s
regime. Tom reminded us that historians should not prioritise evidence according
to its form (written or spoken) or language and discussed how these different
sources can be brought together. Hearing about Tom’s visit to Uganda and the
Karuma falls gave the audience an interesting insight into the particular
challenges faced in studying the history of an area that is being transformed
into a tourist destination.
Up next was Tony McKenna (Northumbria University) who talked
us through the particular difficulties of managing research involving large
amounts of material in which documents are often very similar. It was
particularly interesting to learn about Tony’s approach to using the dense
textual sources in the Communist Party of Great Britain archives in combination
with cultural journals and magazines to study the cultural policy and
production in party circles. After Tony’s talk we had some interesting
discussion comparing the experience of working with French and British
communist party archives and looking at how the language from our sources
affects our writing and whether or not it is possible to be completely
objective.
At the end of the first session we heard from Genny Silvanus
(Northumbria University) who is researching archives and digital archiving.
Genny also used to work at Durham County Record Office so was able to give us a
fascinating insight into how local archives work. It was interesting to hear
about the role of volunteers, and the valuable local knowledge they bring, in cataloguing
archives. Genny also talked about the problems faced by local archives in terms
of funding and in the questions discussed with the audience the relationship
between archives and interest in family history (Top Tip: contact your local
library or county record office to find out if they subscribe to any commercial
databases you might need for your research). Genny also told us about a recent conference
held at Northumbria University (https://threats2openness.wordpress.com/about/)
and talked us through current concerns among archivists and researchers about changes
in the law and the challenges of storing digital records.
After lunch we heard from Annie Foster (Northumbria
University) who used some examples from local collections to demonstrate her research
using postcards as historical documents. The postcards depicted mining
disasters from the early twentieth century and Annie argued that they
represented multiple interests, from the Victorians trends in collecting
ephemera to efforts to raise money for communities affected by the disasters.
Next we heard from Sarah Collins (Northumbria University)
who demonstrated to us the process by which she creates databases and maps using
a geographic information system (GIS). Sarah talked us through the problems she
faces in using early-eighteenth century maps and addresses but then showed us
some powerful visual representations of the social and economic history of
Newcastle that she has created through her research.
To finish the second session we heard two presentations from
Megan Hunt and Stef Allum (both Northumbria University) on their research on
film. Megan and Stef come from different disciplinary backgrounds but drew
together different elements of their research. Megan talked about how the
release of the film Selma has
presented new narratives of religion in the American South in Hollywood films and
how this compares to the representation of religion in other films. Stef spoke
about how contemporary Spanish horror has allowed Spanish society to engage
with the history of the Franco regime which was not discussed under the ‘pact
of silence’. It was interesting to hear about films which have prompted discussion
of history in wider forums.
The day finished with a training session led by Laura
Hutchinson from the Graduate School who talked us through the art of giving
great research presentations. Laura gave us some great advice and some ideas to
think about at home to help us to present our research better. She said we should always have a presentation
plan and be thinking about the next opportunities to present our research – a
good reminder to plan ahead for that big conference or for the next HistoryLab
North East workshop!
