The State We are in: UK Public History, since 2011

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Alison Atkinson-phillips
Graham Smith

Abstract

As public historians living and working in Britain, we live in interesting times. The last twelve years have seen political turbulence in the United Kingdom and its four constituent nations of England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. In this article, we aim to explain why understanding the role of the state in public history in Britain is important. In doing so we consider the current political and public history context, including the rise of non-university based public historians who are working across a range of sectors, as well as the relatively recent rise of taught public history at postgraduate levels within the universities. We do the above in the context of the cultural history wars that have raged in the United Kingdom over the last decade, and the possible links between this and the promotion of wider heritage activities through politically directed funding. We argue that a clear future task for public historians is work aimed at understanding the ways history is being used to shape public perceptions of the past, and how that plays out in the present.

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Articles (PEER REVIEWED)
Author Biographies

Alison Atkinson-phillips, Newcastle University

Alison Atkinson-Phillips is a public historian whose work crosses the disciplinary boundaries of oral history, memory studies and cultural geography.  As a public historian, she is interested in the past in the present. Her research interests include memory activism and activist memories; how difficult pasts are dealt with in the present; public art; and place-based memory work. Alison is Newcastle University UK's first lecturer in public history and is a member of the International Federation for Public History Curriculum and Training Committee. She was instrumental in the formation of the Newcastle University Oral History Unit & Collective, a group of internationally recognised oral historians working within and beyond the university. Alison is author of Survivor Memorials: Remembering Trauma and Loss in Contemporary Australia (UWA Publishing 2019).

Graham Smith, Newcastle University

Graham Smith is Professor of Oral History at Newcastle University in England. He established and continues to lead the Oral History Unit and Collective He has taught public history and oral history in England, Pakistan, and China and teaches on the MA Public History postgraduate programme at Newcastle. He has published on public oral history, including in the Oxford Handbook of Oral History, as well as on public uses of the past. He has also carried out large, funded history projects on migration, medicine, family life, food, and reading. More recently his research has included environmental history and policy, and he is currently researching with colleagues in Bangladesh, India and Vietnam, studying subjective narratives and memories of climate emergency.