How does age shape the experience of refugeedom and migration? How have power structures used age, a supposedly objective measurement of worthiness and vulnerability, to grant some lives more legitimacy than others? Antoine Burgard explores.
History Workshop Journal companion piece
Engaging with the ‘Un-Commemorated’ Past
What does it mean to engage students with difficult, traumatic, messy and complex histories of the British empire and the two world wars? How can we engage with the ‘un-commemorated’, whose names have not appeared on the memorial landscape? Anna Maguire and Diya Gupta reflect on their experiences teaching histories of the ‘un-commemorated’ in empire and war.
Trauma’s Legacies: Living as a ‘Child of Nagasaki’
Have you ever wondered what happens to collective trauma as eyewitness memory fades? For descendants of eyewitnesses, do results of violence dissipate, vanish, or evaporate? Gwyn McClelland explores the evidence from Nagasaki.
Refugees: scrutiny and intrusion in the archive
The modern asylum process imposes upon refugees a requirement to recount their experiences to officials to determine their eligibility. Peter Gatrell considers what is at stake in analysing the surviving archival record.
A Small Place
Joe Moran reflects on his trip to scatter his father’s ashes on Scattery, a tiny island off west Clare, Ireland, and in the process explores its resonances for histories of family, migration, and the power of small places.
Remembering the New Cross Massacre
In the early morning on Sunday 18 January 1981, a fire broke out at 439 New Cross Road in the London Borough of Lewisham. The fire was almost certainly the result of a deliberate racist attack. Thirteen young Black Britons lost their lives as a result.
Refugee Tales: Now and Then
What might be the links – real and metaphorical – between Anne Frank’s story of exile and persecution and the work of C.S Lewis? Margaret Reynolds explores.