Places are still available for the History from Elsewhere Symposium to be held at London Metropolitan Archives tomorrow (Friday 18th September). We are very pleased to be presenting a paper on our civic engagement project associated with the Refugee Archives at UEL and the the launch of our Living Refugee Archive.
Full conference details:
History From Elsewhere Symposium | The use of Archives and Recollection of Memory
Venue | London Metropolitan Archives | 10am – 4.30pm
Refreshments Provided | Bring a picnic
Online Booking: http://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/history-from-elsewhere-symposium-the-use-of-archives-and-recollection-of-memory-tickets-17707886766
London Metropolitan Archives (LMA) will be holding a symposium to provide a platform to heritage practitioners who follow the ‘history from below’ approach in recollecting cultural memory. In the past three decades there has been a debate between the postmodern cultural theorists and the heritage sector over the power held by archives as institutions. Archives are seen as not only being able to wield power over the shape and direction of historical scholarship, collective memory, and national identity but also over how we know ourselves as individuals, groups and societies. The post-colonial heritage theory suggests that individuals belonging to a national community have different experiences to the same past and do not share an identical memory related to the same spaces, places and events and therefore conceive their heritage through multiple frames of reference. The symposium therefore aims to explore the way archives are accommodating the multiple frames of conception of the past and also discuss the challenges in making archives more accessible and inclusive.
Download PDF Programme.
Programme and Spreakers
‘Constructing Social History through the Preservation of “Moving Memories”:
Civic Engagement with Refugees and Migrants in London’
Paul Dudman, Archivist and Dr Rumana Hashem, University of East London, Refugee Council Archive
Paul Dudman is the Archivist at the University of East London which include the Refugee Council Archive, Refugee Action, and the Council for Assisting At-Risk Academics. Additional collections include the British Olympic Association and Hackney Empire theatre. Professional activities include the Campaign for Voluntary Sector Archives.
Rumana Hashem is a Bangladeshi-born activist-sociologist and at Post-doctoral researcher, affiliated with the Centre for Migration Refugees and Belonging at the University of East London. Rumana completed her PhD on Gendered Relations in the ethnically constructed armed conflict in south-east Bangladesh. She actively contributes to the Phulbari Solidarity Group as a Coordinator, and at Nari Diganta as a key organising member, and London Roots Collective as a Facilitator and Trainer.
‘Disabled peoples voices tell the hidden history of buildings’
Esther Fox, Accentuate Heritage
Since June 2009 I have led the ground breaking Accentuate Programme, which challenges perceptions of disability by providing life changing opportunities for Deaf and disabled people to participate and lead within the cultural sector. In May 2015 we received £858,500 from HLF to deliver Accentuate History of Place; a nationally significant social history programme which will chart disabled people’s lives from the middle ages until the late 20th Century in relation to built heritage.
‘Gloves Off: Writing History from Below from Local History Society Archives’
Dr Fiona Cosson, Manchester Metropolitan University
Fiona Cosson is a Research Associate at the Manchester Centre for Regional History at Manchester Metropolitan University. Her research interests focus on Oral History; Local, Community and Public History; and the History of Community and Neighbourhoods. She is a co-founder/convenor of the Unofficial Histories conference, Trustee for the Oral History Society, and Public History Editor for the Oral History Journal.
An Outreach Project: Diverse communities and the First World War
Iqbal Husain, The National Archives
Iqbal Husain has over 20 years’ experience in managing projects that engage communities in cultural activities. He has completed a related programme of studies, including a Masters in Public Administration with a particular focus on arts and cultural engagement. Iqbal Husain is also the director of a not for profit arts organisation, Shared Heritage, that conducts work with diverse and marginalised communities.
“Embodied Genealogies: Marginal histories, uncovered archives and their impact on Black
queer consciousness”
Artists | Raju Rage, Evan Ifekoya, Raisa Kabir, and Rudy Loewe Collective Creativity
Raju rage is a multi-disciplinary artist and community organiser who is proactive about creating space, self-representation and self-empowerment using art and activism to forge creative survival.
Evan Ifekoya is an Artist and Educator with an interdisciplinary practice, based in performance and video, exploring the politicisation of culture, society and aesthetics.
Raisa Kabir is an artist, writer and cultural activist, currently occupied in translating theory based ideas, to visually conceptualise the interrelated politics of the body, racialised labour and space.
Rudy Loewe is a visual artist and educator predominantly using comics, zines, and research in archives, to explore narratives concerning race, gender, sexuality, and disability
Gathering and Making Accessible Testimony of the Holocaust and Genocide:
A Wiener Library Mission from the 1930s to the Present
Jessica Green, Digital Curator
Jessica Green has been working at the Wiener Library since October 2013, first as a Library Intern and most recently as Digital Curator. Before moving to the UK, she completed her MS in Library and Information Science at Simmons College in Boston, MA, and gained work experience at the Harvard Theatre Collection and the JFK Presidential Library and Museum.
An island without a nation? The archive of Ascension Island
Kat Petersen, Archivist
Kat Petersen has been an archivist since 2003 and is currently working at the German Historical Institute London after posts at the Freud Museum and the British Library. She completed her MA in Archives and Records Management at UCL in 2015. Her research interests include archives in post/neo-colonial contexts, the role of archivists in society, and perceptions of archives and archivists.
In My Footsteps an interaction between people and place, combining local history and heritage with communal culture and personal identity
Marion Vargaftig, Creative Producer
Marion Vargaftig is a creative producer/consultant in UK/Europe. She devises innovative initiatives associating media and culture to promote social change. Marion co-founded Manifesta, an organisation that develops and delivers projects and productions with mixed age groups – in marginalised urban locations, on issues related to cultural diversity, antiracism and social exclusion, looking at the social archaeology of neighbourhoods.
The Last Days of Limehouse – Searching for London’s Original Chinatown
Kumiko Mendl, Artistic Director
Kumiko Mendl has worked as an actress, teacher, storyteller and director for stage, TV and Radio and has been Artistic Director of Yellow Earth Theatre since 2011. Last year she conceived and co -directed The Last Days of Limehouse a promenade piece about the original Chinatown in London staged in Limehouse Old Town Hall. Currently she is working on a new play inspired by the little known story of the Chinese Labour Corps, the 96,000 men who came from China to work for the allies during the First World War.
Preservation of and Access to Refugee Archives”. This was a collaborative project was undertaken by the Refugee Council Archive at the University of East London, in conjunction with academic staff from the UEL Centre for Refugees, Migration and Belonging. The project sought to utilise existing archival collections at UEL as a basis to forge new partnerships between students, academics, activists and community groups. The project aimed to engage with local communities in an attempt to create a Living Refugee Archive to promote and enable accessibility and engagement with our archival collections. This engagement and partnership working would be facilitated through the collection of oral histories.
A number of very interesting questions were raised on the day and we thought we would share some of these with you all via this blog posting. It would be great if these questions could help generate some discussion around the importance of the Refugee Archive collections that we hold and how we can make them more accessible, engaging and relevant in the future. I will also be sharing some of these questions via our Living Refugee Archive Twitter account @LivingRefArch.
activities session of our launch event. The aim was to discuss the meaning of some terminologies such as “democratic access”, “exclusion”, and “privilege” in the hope this would help to find out how we can make our Archives really open and accessible to communities without facing external threats.
survive for documenting the refugee experience?
Refugee Archives @ UEL 
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