Refugee Histories, Representation and Living Archives 

26th Oct 2022 11:00am-1:00pm 

This workshop is offered as part of a Techne Conflux, an extended training, development, exhibition or performance programme which aims to enhance research or intellectual skills, or facilitate the sharing of expertise amongst doctoral students in the arts and humanities. 

To book a place in person, please register here. 

Techne Conflux and Centre for Memory, Narrative and Histories:

Rethinking Archival Research, Methods and Practice

The Centre for Memory, Narrative and Histories secured Techne funding for a Conflux programme that will address key methodologies and historiographies associated with archival research, practices and critical perspectives.

The archive’s authoritative status has come under increasing pressure across the arts and humanities in the last thirty years or so. This richly diverse programme of workshops will provide a framework to explore bigger questions about the ways in which the archive has been critiqued, problematised and de-centred in a range of academic disciplines, cultural contexts and professional settings.

Examining topics such as ‘living archives’, post-conflict community archives, AI and the archive, as well as what it means in practice to decolonise the imperial archive, the programme aims to highlight the extent to which differing approaches and methods can further enhance the generative possibilities of interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary perspectives.

The first in our series of workshops features Paul Dudman, who will be focusing on the participatory and co-collaborative approaches undertaken by the Refugee Archives / Living Refugee Archive at the University of East London (UEL) 

Wednesday 26^th October, 11.00-13.00 (Grand Parade 202)

‘Refugee Histories, Representation and Living Archives: Counter-Narratives of the Refugee Archive and Empowered Collaboration – a Case Study of the Living Refugee Archive’

Paul Dudman, University of East London Archives

This workshop will focus upon the participatory and co-collaborative approaches undertaken by the Refugee Archives / Living Refugee Archive at the University of East London (UEL) to support and develop ethical bottom-up anti-oppressive methodologies for documenting the life histories and testimonies of communities with experience of exile and displacement. The workshop will draw upon the “living archives” approach to working on participatory-centred approaches to community-engaged participatory practices grounded in supporting the agency and voice of traditionally under-represented communities with the Archive and to help establish an ethics of care in supporting communities to help empower their own community focused storytelling. We will consider how we can disrupt traditional archival paradigms in looking to re-define what we mean by an “archive” and how we can develop new strategies and engagement tools for informed participatory-collaboration with displaced communities.

Paul V. Dudman has been the Archivist at the University of East London (UEL) Archives for 20 years, and whose archives include the British Olympic Association Archive; East London People’s Archive; Hackney Empire Theatre Archive; and the Refugee Council Archive. Paul has worked on a number of archival civic engagement projects exploring issues surrounding the ethical documentation of migration narratives and the role of theatre as means of performing and representing narraties as a tool for empowerment and social change. Paul’s research interests are focused on refugee history and the role of archives in documenting and preserving the personal narratives and life histories of migration.

Lunch and refreshments are provided.

To book a place in person, please register here.

You can also join via Teams, please register here. The teams link will be sent ahead of the workshop.

For further information about this Conflux programme’s events, contact: D.Madden2@brighton.ac.uk and r.rich@brighton.ac.uk

Or visit the CMNH blog: https://blogs.brighton.ac.uk/cmnh/