In this blog post Graham Smith, Professor of Oral History at Newcastle, reviews the position of the University’s Oral History Collective in relation to ageing, ageism and intergenerational research.
Continue readingAndy Clark presents a new podcast series to mark the 40th anniversary of the Lee Jeans occupation.
Continue readingDeindustrialisation, and the understanding of how it continues to reverberate through working-class communities, is a relatively new but growing interdisciplinary field. Alongside academic interest, community activist groups, heritage organisations, trade unions and artists are engaged in examining the impact of structural economic change. The Deindustrialisation, Heritage and Memory Network came together through three workshops – held in Glasgow, Newcastle and Canterbury – which brought together research from across academia and the heritage sector, offering an important space where significant and lasting connections have been made. In this post, network contributors Paul Barnsley and Emma Copestake reflect on their experiences of the workshops, and consider future directions in the field.
Last year, Dr Andy Clark was awarded a British Academy / Leverhulme Trust Small Grant to conduct a scoping project on the Lockerbie disaster, 1988. Working with Dr Colin Atkinson, Lecturer in Criminology at UWS, they will conduct interviews with a number of witnesses involved in the aftermath of the disaster. In this Lug post, Andy reflects on how to prepare for such a project. There is an extensive literature on reflections of oral historians once projects have been completed, but in this piece, Andy discusses his thoughts and approaches before beginning the interview process. Continue reading
The Newcastle Oral History Unit and Collective is celebrating its first full year of operation with our Annual Public Lecture in March. As with any new venture, it has been a year of learning, and an important part of that has been figuring out where we fit into the world of oral history. To help us with that, we made sure at least one member attended each of the four large oral history conferences held in Europe and North America in 2018*, to get a sense of the ‘state of the field’ that we are a part of. So, what have we learned?
Research Associate, Andy Clark, has recently been organising and coordinating a new network looking at deindustrialisation, heritage and memory. On Friday 28th September, the network held its first workshop at the Scottish Oral History Centre in Glasgow. In this Lug post, Andy reports on the papers, themes and discussions that emerged throughout the day.
Full Media Release: https://www.ncl.ac.uk/press/articles/latest/2018/08/saveourshipyardshistory/
Voices from a historic campaign to save the North East’s shipyards are being sought in a bid to remember the real life experiences of those involved.
The Oral History Unit’s Dr Alison Atkinson-Phillips wants to track down people who took part in the ‘Save our Shipyards’ campaign that took place from 1983-84 in a bid to stop the closure of yards on the Tyne and Wear. Workers from Swan Hunter on the Tyne and Austin & Pickersgill on the Wear, their families, union leaders and local politicians, were interviewed for two short films known collectively as the ‘Shipyard Tapes’.
The first film ‘The Price of Ships’ explains the economics of the global shipping industry, highlights the strengths of the yards on the Tyne and the Wear and argues for further government support. The second film ‘Down the Road Again’ warns of the dangers of the yards returning to private ownership, cautioning that it risked returning to the type of unsecure, casual labour that shipbuilding was known for before nationalisation.
Originally commissioned by the Tyne and Wear County Council, the two twenty minute films have been preserved and are part of the collections of North East Film Archive, who are working with Newcastle University on the project.
Email oralhistory@newcastle.ac.uk for more information.
In this Lug post, Andy Clark discusses a new network that he’s coordinating focused on deindustrialisation, heritage and memory. It aims to facilitate greater collaboration and discussion among academics, heritage groups, artists, and community historians interested in deindustrialisation and the memorialisation of manufacturing jobs and communities. Email andy.clark@newcastle.ac.uk to find out more, or to join the network’s mailing list.
Alison Atkinson-Phillips has joined Oral History @ Newcastle as our second Research Associate. Alison has come to oral history via public history, cultural studies, community development and a non-academic career in communications. Alison’s Twitter profile (@dralia_p) describes her as a ‘writer, researcher, renovator and procrastinator’. But with the renovations left behind in Bassendean (Western Australia) she is hoping she will have time for her other three favourite things.*
Here below is the formal advert. But please go the University jobs website and search: work and After.
CLOSING DATE 23 October 2017
The University continues to build on in its commitment to oral history and has recently appointed a new Professor of Oral History. We are seeking applications for a post created to support the new Professor and to contribute to a growing programme of research relating to oral history. The post will include recording life history interviews that will provide new contexts to our understanding of memories of work, with specific attention to engineering in the first instance, as well as generating oral history data about the history employment, deindustrialisation and attempted regeneration in the North East of England since the Second World War. In addition, the project will investigate the relationship between visual representations of the past and memory. The successful applicant would also participate in the oral history unit’s other initiatives, including digital technologies and linking to oral historians beyond the university. The post is suitable to applicants skilled in oral history.
Main Duties and Responsibilities
1. To undertake literature reviews
2. To collect and analyse oral histories
3. To prepare oral history materials for archiving
4. To contribute to writing for publications
5. To contribute to preparation of funding applications
6. To contribute to the project’s public engagement agenda
7. To present results as required at local, national or international conferences
8. To engage with relevant stakeholders, including working with at least one community group in the region
9. To attend meetings and other events as appropriate
10. To identify, in collaboration with senior staff, and undertake a programme of professional development, including further training in oral history theories and methods and other transferable skills
11. To contribute to activities associated with the running and administration of the unit, or perform other duties, as required by the unit’s Director
Research Role Profile
As part of our commitment to career development for research staff, the University has developed 3 levels of research role profiles. These profiles set out firstly the generic competences and responsibilities expected of role holders at each level and secondly the general qualifications and experiences needed for entry at a particular level. It is unlikely that any single member of staff will be applying all these competences at any one time but he or she would be expected to display most of them over a period of time. Please follow this link to our Research Role Profiles
Newcastle University Oral History Collective
The successful applicant will join a rapidly growing and dynamic group of highly interdisciplinary researchers who are using oral history methods at Newcastle University. The wider grouping includes colleagues from History, English, Archaeology, Media, Culture and Heritage, the Unit of Health and Society, the Business School, the Centre for Rural Economy, Geography and Education, Communication and Language Sciences. The successful applicant will have the opportunity to help build on Newcastle’s strengths in relation to oral history and to respond to some of the most important questions arising from the uses of oral history. This includes addressing questions relating to individual and collective memory, the relationship of oral history to biography and history, representativeness and generalisability, intersubjectivity, orality, social identity, and memory and ageing. We are also interested in the challenges of digital archiving, making collections accessible and reuse, and innovative uses of oral histories in communicating history to the wider public.
Oral history in Newcastle is in a particularly exciting phase of development. The University has made a substantial investment in oral history. As well as a Chair in Oral History, there is funding for two three-year Research Associate posts. This core team, based in History, will form a research focus not only for the wider University grouping, but with at least one community oral history organisation in the North East.
This Research Associate post is a newly created position to work with the Professor of Oral History, appointed in 2017, and a second Research Associate. The post holder will work both with the new Professor and with other staff on issues relating to oral history collection, analysis, archiving and dissemination. More specifically, the post holder will research the history of employment after 1945 using oral histories along with visual sources. Particular attention will be paid to engineering in North-East England. This post will be attractive to individuals who already have an interest and track record in research relating to oral history and the history of work, deindustrialisation and/or regeneration. Excellent knowledge and experience of oral history research designs, including archiving, is preferred. However, the post is open to candidates with proven strengths in oral history more generally.
Person Specification
Knowledge (including qualifications)
Essential
Skills (professional, technical, managerial, practical)
Essential
Experience and Achievements
Essential
Desirable