Past Events
Dealing with Distress: Care-Taking Strategies in History and Memory
- Venue: ARMB Reception Room
- Start: Mon, 16 May 2022 11:00:00 BST
- End: Mon, 16 May 2022 17:30:00 BST
Co-hosted by Cultures of Memory FRG, the Oral History Collective, the Institute for Humanities, and the Methods Hub.
This workshop brings together scholars working across disciplines, whose work shared a common thread of engaging with the difficult or distressing past in the present. Three sessions cover the research life-cycle, from engaging with participants, researcher self-care while exploring difficult topics, and presenting findings to the public. The day will end with an open and honest discussion between researchers at all levels of experience.
11:00am Tea and Coffee on arrival.
11:15am Keynote Lecture - TBC
12:00 Part 1: Care-taking for research participants. How is research different when it engages with real
people who are living in or speaking about difficulty and distress?
Chair: Chris Law
- Ruth Graham - Title TBC
- Gönül Bozoğlu - Memories of loss and displacement: working with older people from the Greek Istanbuli communities
- Alison Atkinson-Phillips - Creating space for emotions in an oral history interview
13:15pm Lunch
14:15pm Part 2: Care-taking for researchers. How can we take care of ourselves when our research involves narratives of pain and distress?
Chair: Gönül Bozoğlu
- David Farrell-Banks – Distance/Proximity: Negotiating care in researching the far-right and Covid-19
- Andy Clark – Navigating expected and unexpected trauma as a researcher: an oral history of the 1988 Lockerbie Disaster
- Catherine Gilbert – Encountering difficult narratives as a researcher: emotional labour, informed empathy and
- an ethics of care
15:30 Tea & Coffee
15:45 Part 3: Care-taking for audiences. How do we talk about/represent distressing topics to others?
Chair: Alison Atkinson-Phillips
- Francesca Lanz – Asylum stories: histories and memory of mental health
- Chris Whitehead – Distant suffering, refugees and empathy politics in museums and museology
16:30 Conclusion: Open Forum Discussion led by PGR and ECR colleagues
17:30 Drinks
Organisers: Alison Atkinson-Phillips (HCA); Gönül Bozoğlu (SACS); Chris Law (HCA)
