Interviews and Imperialism
Hello again,
It’s crazy how time flies when you’re in a whirlwind of summer plans and jobs and research all mixed into one big productivity pie! Regardless, week two has just gone by and I’m now comfortably settling into the research of ‘Friendship as a Method’; I feel like a marathon runner who found their rhythm of breathing and is settling in for the long stretch to come.
The interviews are well underway, and I have just finished organising the second round of interviews with involve interacting with the public itself to understand how the presentation of archive research can create public discourse about such historical events. I am excited because these responses are crucial to how the project will proceed; if the public believes this type of presentation of research is engaging and useful then this will be used as my springboard to research the international archives in regards to their documentation of colonialism. Hopefully, I can then utilise this research to create a resource for future pupils to generate conversations about British, French and Spanish colonialism and how national archives do not hold the complete story.
If, however, these interviews reflect a want for a different interaction with the public or the archive material then the project will have to be revised and I will possibly venture to research how alternative methods may be pursued to discuss the documentation and discussion of colonialism in Britain, France and Spain. This may include public lectures on this history or more interactive workshops on these subjects. I will also have to pursue more academic literature on the most engaging ways to get public attention to a political discussion.
In summation, this week has given me many things to be excited about (such as planning for my possible trip to Europe) and many others to create contingency plans for (if the public found the events uninteresting). My research partners have continued to interview students and staff members involved with the project and we are all in the long process of transcribing our interviews.
That is all for Week 2- it will be interesting to see how much this project will evolve by my next update!
Hi, I’m Hazel and I’m studying Law at the University of Leeds- this year i'm specialising in International Human Rights Law and Sustainability in Companies!
I chose to study Law because, on top of it being an interdisciplinary and interesting subject, Law is a deeply flawed system in the United Kingdom and many other states. My passion involves analysing aspects of the law and how it represents historical prejudices; it’s up to our generation to replace such outdated structures for an adaptable representative model.
My research project is called “Friendship as a Method” and ventured to understand how alternative learning styles help student engage with meaningful subjects, specifically centering around pedagogical research of colonial archives. I will take this further to reflexively investigate how the archive itself can be “decolonised” by documenting events in conjunction with indigenous voices into an online space. My research supervisor Professor Anna Grimaldi is helped me to travel to the Spanish and Portuguese national colonial archives to compare how different languages document colonialism. (If you are working with archives in any of these places please contact me and I would love to discuss our projects!)
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