Tag Archives: Reflection

OHD_WRT_0175 Interim Crit Plan

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Here follows a basic plan for interim crit sessions that I believe will help my work. The general aim is for me to get feedback on my work but also to bring together various stakeholders for further knowledge exchange. I imagine there will be two types of crit sessions, one AFK (away from keyboard) and the other on Zoom. I think it best for them to take place near the end of this calendar year.

AFK Day

There is the option to have AKF days at different locations, one at Newcastle, another at Northumbria and one at Seaton Delaval Hall. What I plan to do is have an exhibition of my work which people are able to visit throughout the day and also have scheduled sessions where people have a round table discussion about my work. When it comes to capturing people’s feedback, the discussions can be recorded and people will be also encouraged to leave comments on my work either via a feedback or post-its.

Zoom Day

The Zoom day will be similar in structure; there will be a Miro board that functions as a type of gallery space and scheduled round table sessions. Although it might also be helpful to send round a collection of my work before hand. Feedback again will be captured in a similar way as I can record zoom sessions and people can leave comments and post-its on the Miro board.

OHD_WRT_0171 CDA development update

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CDA development update

Here is a brief overview of how the PhD has changed since the project proposal split it into three sections. The first considers the significant changes that have occur globally in the last two years. The second discusses the change in the framing of the situation the PhD is addressing, reusing oral history recordings on heritage sites. And the third looks at the changes in design methodology and theory due to the environment I am designing in and for.

SECTION ONE: HISTORY HAPPENED

Since the writing of project proposal, the world experience significant changes including, the COVID-19 pandemic, further development in the conversation around the Britain’s colonial past, and a constant wave of climate disasters. The Trust did not escape the effects of these changes, having to furlough and make significant cuts to staff during the 2020 lockdown, publishing the report on sites with connections to the British Empire, including Seaton Delaval Hall, and wider actions for the Trust to achieve carbon net neutrality. In addition, the COVID-19 lockdowns also highlighted the public’s need for access to open spaces and nature, while storms, like Storm Arwen, highlighted the threat the climate crisis is to the Trust running open natural spaces. It is because of the changes in the Trust this project has also evolved and the project is unfolding in a very different environment than when it was originally proposed. The project therefore has to think about the environment impact of the designs it is developing and think about how the design might fit in the (post-)COVID structure of the Trust. In the original proposal the project was already thinking about a 360˚ interpretation of the hall but now this seems more important than ever.

It is also interesting to note, while it is true that National Trust sites are to a certain extend run autonomously, they do not operate in a vacuum. National Trust sites function inside the wider structure of the Trust, an extensively complicated network of rules, regulations, and resources. I believe the influence this structure has on the project was slightly underestimated at the time of writing the project proposal. For example, the Trust’s digital infrastructure which has strict rules and regulations about digital storage has become quite the barrier, the extent of which had not really been realised before the start of the project.

SECTION TWO: BUILDING THE FOUNDATIONS

In the summary of the project proposal it is written that “the PhD would generate, in partnership, new knowledge in understanding and addressing visitors’ active engagement in interpreting the past through reusing a National Trust oral history archive.” The big assumption made here was that “a National Trust oral history archive” was either already in existence or would have been easy to set up. What the last two years have revealed is that this part of the task is easier said than done and the struggle in setting up oral history archives that allow reuse is not unique to the National Trust. After I did a deep dive into the many attempts to make oral history recording more reuse friendly through digital tools, it became clear something more fundamental was not being addressed. Most frequently the downfall of these digital solutions was the projects coming to the end of their funding, meaning there was no money to support the maintenance needed to keep the technology running, which eventually resulted in their deterioration.

If we return to part of the original title of the PhD, “sustaining visitor (re)use”, the project initial was about building a system to allow visitor interpretation of oral history recordings. However, two years down the line “sustaining visitor (re)use” seems only achievable if at first, we create a solid foundation on which a system for visitor interpretation can be build and maintained. In order to create these foundations, there needs to be a focus on maintenance and the resources needed to support the storage of oral history recordings, which is something that has been missing from other endeavours into oral history recordings accessible. The resources needed will obviously include labour and money but also energy. As the large carbon footprint of internet servers and the storing of digital files is being realised. This project also needs to think about how we are able to store oral history recordings in the most energy efficient way possible, while still ensuring they are accessible and reusable to a wide range of people. This is especially important with the Trust’s aims for carbon neutrality.

SECTION THREE: CHANGE IN METHODOLOGY

Back in the original proposal Roberto Verganti’s idea of a technological epiphany is mentioned as a possible route for the PhD. However as written in the first section the Trust’s digital infrastructure is slightly rigid and is likely to not accommodate any radical technological innovation, meaning that a technological epiphany is unlikely. What we can still take from Verganti is his ideas around a change in meaning. What does it mean to do oral history on heritage sites? And how does oral history benefit heritage sites in the long term, beyond the idea of volunteer and visitor engagement within a set project timeline? Alongside Verganti’s idea of a change in meaning I have taken on design theory from Cameron Tonkinwise about ‘design for transitions’, which involves thinking about the life of designs outside of the project timeline and Victor Papenek’s six elements of function that lead to a successful design: use, method, need, aesthetic, telesis, association.

With the project design practice there has been another change. Instead of following a step-by-step process of researching, developing a prototype, testing and iteration. I have opted to use ‘infrastructuring’; researching and mapping the existing structure of an institution or system to better understand and communicate where any possible design solutions might fit. And ‘design fiction’ or scenario building as a low-risk method to harvest feedback on possible designs instead of the high-risk method of live testing and iteration. Design fiction/scenario building also seems to be an excellent way to communicate across disciplines.

OHD_BLG_0045 Leaching off Public History MA trips

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Two thing I learnt while tagging along with the Public History MA trips to various heritages sites.

Chasing funding

We went to three different heritage sites of varying status and every single one of them mentioned funding many, many, many times. Like many things in the world money is the foundation of any project, endeavour, or system, without it nothing happens, even in the heritage sector where a considerable amount of the labour is free because of volunteers. The majority of funding is project based. That means you write a proposal for a project, which has target outcomes and needs to be completed in a set amount of time. Once the project is finished and you have used up all the funding you have to go look for another project and a new funding. This is often referred to as the funding cycle. The funding cycle is not necessarily good in supporting legacy long term projects. “What will happen when the funding runs out?” is constantly looming over any project and many people actually spend a lot of time writing funding bids instead of working on projects. I therefore not the greatest fan of the funding cycle but there was one person we talked to during the week that gave me a new perspective on the whole thing. They said that the funding cycle allowed them to constantly be reflecting on their practice and what they should be doing next. This is interesting to me because reflective practice has been taught to me as a new and innovative groovy thing. New systems keep on being developed in order to incorporate more reflection but in the funding cycle it has always existed, kind of… It is probably a lot easier to have this attitude when you know you are going to get the next funding anyway, which this person definitely did.

Democratisation of Space

The second thing I realised/changed my perspective on during these trips was how you can view a lot of the politics through the idea of “whose heritage is it anyway?” but somehow I realised that it might be helpful to view it within the context of space and ownership of space. This is quite common in art I guess as people often talk about who gets put in certain gallery spaces and who does not. Every group has their history which they can keep but where it is displayed is where the power truly lies. Sure you can have a history of black people in the black history archive but a far more powerful space to have the exhibition would be the British Library or National Gallery. My theory is: that when we talk about democratising heritage what we really are talking about is democratising space. How can we represent our multilayered history in our limited heritage space? I am thinking that the answer is probably something along the lines of nonpermanent exhibitions…

OHD_BLG_0070 Reading Group – 16/03/21

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Readings

Families remembering food: revising secondary data by Peter Jackson et al.

Secondary analysis reflection: some experiences of re-use from an oral history perspective by Joanna Bornat

Dynamic Attitudes

Everyone views the world through their own personal lens and academics are not exempt. If when an academic sets out on their researching journey they already have a vague idea about what they are going to write about. An oral historian will pick people to interview based on this idea and will ask questions that will fulfil this idea. However, many unexpected things can happen during research that causes you to change your attitude, readjust your lens etc. Your mindset evolves with the project and there is nothing you can do to stop it. This is why constant reflection is so important because our thought process is never static.

Reuse is not the issue, its about permissions

To reuse an oral history can be very valuable but because everyone views history through a different lens it is likely that the reuser will have different attitude to the creator. This results in different conclusion to be made from the same source. However, oral histories are set up in a way that makes the source only give permission for the creator’s interpretation and not necessarily the reuser’s. This is why it’s not about the reuse of oral histories, we know that creates value, but the permissions around the new interpretation, the one that was not necessarily agreed on by the source.

Even if the source agreed that their recording is open source the reuser might still feel the need to ask for permission especially if that person is still alive.

Recording for reuse

What this reading group made clear to me was that the particular oral histories I will be recording are solely for reuse. I am not planning on writing any analysis on the content of the recordings I just need to make sure that they can be reused properly. Reuse is my mission. I have no lens to work through. (Only the subconscious ones and the large one where I am super focused on getting ALL information.)

Always reflect

This reflection is not only for the interviewer but also for the interviewee. In the piece about food they end with the conclusion that it is important to get the interviewee to reflect on what they are saying. To encourage them to become active participants in their own historical analysis, instead of it solely being the interviewer being the one who is analysing it. This is better for the power dynamic.

The code

Now I have already started writing a code of practice for the design aspect of this CDA but I have not really thought about what this would be for the oral history side. On reflection the system I am building for this CDA probably should have some type of code that accommodates it. And I believe that a point that was brought up by Graham in the reading group is a good starting. You see he mentioned that on of the oral history collections that was being reused had field notes attached to the recordings that would now be considered very unethical. Now of course these notes are a fabulous source for showing previous scholars attitudes to the method of oral history collection but they probably should not be digitised and on the internet for everyone to find. Graham therefore had them removed from the internet. This made me think that in the process of reusing oral histories there maybe should be the task of also doing ethical checks on the storage. A kind of mutual agreement that all oral historians keep each other in check since ethics is such a nebulous minefield.

OHD_BLG_0089 Reading Group – 19/01/2021

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TOPIC: Oral history training and teaching

Papers read:

“National Education Meets Critical Pedagogy: Teaching Oral History in Turkey” by Leyla Neyzi

“Is Half a Loaf Better than None? Reflections on Oral History Workshops” by Lu Ann Jones

“Embracing the Mess: Reflections on Untidy Oral History Pedagogy” by Anna Sheftel

Interesting talk about reflection and critical thinking about the process of teaching and training oral history.

Teaching .v. Training

The central debate was about training and teaching oral history. The ‘half a loaf’ paper wondered if we distilled oral history too much and whether squishing oral history into a couple hours doesn’t allow for the participants to get into the nitty gritty of it all. Where teaching oral history involves papers, philosophy and critical thinking, training is far more practical. Someone compared training to learning to drive. You learn the basics, then you pass your test and then you only really learn how to drive properly afterwards. How you learn the basics can also be questioned as the majority of training happens in groups and so people often don’t get the chance for any one-to-one work, which can be extremely valuable.

I love a good tool box

Is it ethically OK to ‘train’ people for a couple of hours and then declare them ready to interview or design?

The big thing I took from it all was this parallel between oral history training and the various ‘tools’ and ‘systems’ the design industry offers. These mass produced ideas that are often not tailored to the needs of the situation. This tailoring is offer better through teaching and more time. As Natascha Jen says design is not just a step by step process its a mindset. You cannot teach people a mind set in two days.

But can you give them the tools to create a mindset for oral historys?

Are we too practically focused?

The conclusion was that there was a lack of reflection on the processes used to train people in oral history.

I wrote this many many days later because I have been surprisingly busy, which is why this is rather uninspiring.

OHD_BLG_0111 #BLM

There is a lot say about this topic but mostly there is a lot to ask. For some #BLM is a time to fight and for others, it is time to reflect and review.

This reflection can been seen in the removing of statues and renaming of streets or in the case of my dad the renaming of inappropriate climbing routes. If I look at this from the point of view of someone who is interested in archives and the preservation of history, I feel this moment in history proves how history is not static. And it shows that how we tell history needs to be constantly updated. This includes archives. I remembering hearing somewhere that people struggle to find black history in archives after the mid 20th century because the words used to catatorgise the documents are not words we use today.

What I am hopefully am going to explore during this PhD is to how do we set up archives that allow this reviewing of history to happen easily and inclusively. Rather than making history a battle ground of identity it becomes the educational resource that it should be.

On the 16th June I joined the oral history reading group. We had been given two papers to read that were written in the 1980s and only one was written by a black person.

The first paper was by Kim Lacy Rogers called ‘Memory, Struggle, and Power: On Interviewing Political Activists” published 1987. In the paper Rogers reviews her work on interviewing activists, both black and white, who were involved in civil rights in New Orleans in the 1960s.

The second paper was by Donald Hinds called “The ‘Island’ of Brixton”. It was a portrait of Brixton in the 1960s.

The discussion was mainly about how you interview activists when they are people who are aware of their position in history. What seemed odd to me was that people were not interviewing the people who were affected by the activism. If we are looking a text about activism in the 1960s written in the 1980s, yet the world it talks about could easily be the current one, then why aren’t we asking why things haven’t changed? What is their legacy? Do we need more revisiting of movements and more reviewing?

The other main topic was co-analysis, co-creation and other co-activities that should occur in order to create a more equal representation of the situation when it comes to race. The biggest issue being that there are not many people of colour in oral history yet there are plenty oral history recordings on the topics. Which as always are stuck in the archives.

I found it tragic that we were a group of white people who could only dig up two papers on the black oral history from the 1980s. This situation proves that a review of how we take oral histories and how we set up the archives is desperately needed.