Absence/presence of Durham's Black History: exploration of institutions, archives, students and pedagogies

This meeting will focus on the concept of ‘archives’ and explore the concept across various disciplines and the connotations of power that it has. Along with archives we will also engage with the built environment, our surroundings, in terms of being repositories of black histories of Durham through a walking tour. It will feature contributions from an external speaker, Sean Creighton, colleagues and students across the faculties. This discussion will explore how we engage with these absent/present archives. The meeting will be chaired and moderated by Nayanika Mookherjee (Anthropology) and Sol Gamsu (Sociology).

This Development Project – through a series of workshops – seeks to build on existing synergies emerging from discussion within the BAME network on the absence/presence of Durham’s ‘black’ (refers to those who see themselves as being politically black) history. It seeks to contribute to the debates on decolonising by exploring institutions, archives, black students in Durham’s history and explore the impact of these findings on pedagogies and curriculums within the University. Three key events will bring together researchers, and external partners, non-academic stakeholders, research grant advisors, and guest speakers to develop an interdisciplinary focus for research funding priorities. https://www.durham.ac.uk/research/institutes-and-centres/advanced-study/projects/development-projects/absencepresence-of-durhams-black-history-exploration-of-institutions-archives-students-and-pedagogies/