children on the move: evacuation in staffordshire professor maggie andrews professor of cultural...
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![Page 1: Children on the Move: Evacuation in Staffordshire Professor Maggie Andrews Professor of Cultural History University of Worcester maggie.andrews@worc.ac.uk](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022062318/551bc8df550346b9588b4f6c/html5/thumbnails/1.jpg)
Children on the Move:Evacuation in Staffordshire
Professor Maggie AndrewsProfessor of Cultural HistoryUniversity of [email protected]
Matthew BlakeParticipation and Engagement OfficerStaffordshire Archive [email protected]
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Background to the Project• Record Office had a range of
inquires from family historians who wanted understand theirrelations experience of WW2evacuation in Staffordshire
• Previously two smaller oral history projects by Staffordshire Archives and Museum Service to capture C20 histories before they were lost gave a project template which could be scaled up for this project
• Evacuation was covered on University curriculum, an and MA had written on in relation to history of Wis
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Research Process / Activities• HFL funded grant financed
project officer who carried out 90 interviews – importance of high number of interviews to understand multiplicity of experiences of evacuation
• 10 local events to promote the project
• Students from Keele and Staffordshire Universities and local Schools extracted information from school log books, newspapers
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Progress of Project• Wider academic research
• Regular 3 monthly meetings between University, Archives, Museum Service, Project Officer share ideas and discuss emerging themes
• Website http://www.childrenonthemove.org.uk/
• Production of a publication with input from University, Record Office and Museum Service
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Positive impact on Communities and Individuals• Asked interviewees to
share their histories rather than take them to create our histories
• Positive impact on their lives - clear at the event held for them at NMA
• Books given to every participant every Staffordshire Library and Secondary School
• Travelling Exhibition
• Website and on-going scope to upload histories
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A range of Outputs/ Impacts and Uses of Research
• For archives modern history telling a different stories - oral histories and transcripts - used for understanding experience of evacuation to Staffordshire
• 90 transcripts used in U/G assessments and dissertations
• Contributed to academic research, conference papers, journal articles and a book to be completed for Bloomsbury Academic 2014
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Benefits to Academic Work • Began to work across, even bridge, categories and boundaries; range of
input in the planning, the discursive style of interviewing, the launch event and book resulted in a project which straddled :
– boundaries of reminiscence work and academic work which interrogates memory and myths in oral history
– categories of history written by, for or about ordinary peoples lives produced a version of peoples history in the best traditions of Raph Samuel and the original History Workshop Movement
• Moved from individual / solitary analysis of ‘documents’ subject to discursive approach – for example through the dialogue in project teams about themes and narrative tropes within the oral histories, something continued in U/G exploration of material
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Build on your relationships
• The partnership for academics and local authority organisations can be a rewarding one
• Encourage undergraduate work on the project
• Develop the use of findings/collections by universities
• Develop community engagement
George Cooke and Sydney Cox, reunited after 70 years
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What we learnt• The importance of informal and frequent dialogue in planning projects and
running them
• That there is real scope to craft a research project which serves a number of different constituencies - for example we brought together academic research into oral history and reminiscence work
• That time invested in impact work with local archives can actually end up as very time efficient - in practical terms the work done by the project officer undertaking the interviews and work placement students has equated with having a research assistant for two years
• Academic and public sector targets can be met through good project working