Sedimented Histories: connections and collaborations in regional history

This paper reflects on experience gained through working with local residents and groups on a variety of community history projects, including the centenary of World War 1, a village high street, post-war council housing, and the fate of one railway ticket office on a branch line closed during the Beeching era. Coming from an academic setting, we are particularly interested in the potential for universities to play a role in connecting otherwise discrete projects and research across the region. Our aim has been to go beyond a ‘local for locals’ framework and encourage participants to feel part of broader endeavour, such as seeing the global in the local. We are currently experimenting with digital storytelling and digital mapping as methods to bring diverse projects into national and even international dialogue, enabling researchers, both inside and outside the university, to express and share their findings. How might we collaborate to create new forms of spatial and relational knowledge with public and academic value?
Drawing on these initiatives, the paper discussed the dynamics of community-university research. Universities bring to these collaborations institutional longevity, as well as material and intellectual resources, suggesting another way of thinking about the relationship. Where voices and memories are contested, or perspectives fragmented, universities can contribute to making a ‘sediment’ of connected, but not necessarily uniform, histories.