The FASS Placements and Internships Team is currently funding 12 student interns who are working on a research project with Lancashire Archives and Lancashire Museums (including the Judges Lodgings in Lancaster). They are exploring the history of slavery and the lives of slaves, to contribute towards the Lancaster Slavery Family Trees Community History Project at Lancaster University Lancaster Slavery Project – Lancaster Slavery Family Trees Community History Project
The ‘research buddies’ are collaborating with key groups within Lancaster district to research family trees of key slavery families, building on existing historical resources to record community stories that will allow local people to work together to face the past and in doing so transform the future.
The key groups involved in the collaboration include school children and teachers, refugees and asylum seekers, university students and staff, and members of voluntary groups/charities/trusts/ local government. The student interns are undertaking historical research, work with pubic databases, local museums and other resources to produce the family trees. Outputs will include resources for schools, podcasts and more, which will be shared on the project website.
This pilot family trees project will kickstart a bigger and longer project, and the hope is that this co-produced research will form the basis for large bids, and will also as a public resource to allow other artists, teachers, activists and more to develop their own reparative local history projects.
Here is some feedback from three of the Slavery Family Trees Researchers:
Amy Furney:
The placement so far has been going really well and I’ve found the experience incredibly rewarding. It’s good fun to go and do research without pressure and stress attached to it (during assessment time, dare I say I’ve nearly forgotten what that feels like!).
Alanah Hill:
I think I am finding it a bit more challenging at the moment due to my coursework, but I am really enjoying the internship as a researcher for the Slavery Family Tree project. I look forward to researching further!
Andrew Williams:
I am really looking forward to getting stuck into the Slavery Family Trees project, working with resources from Lancashire Archives to uncover the hidden history of Lancaster and the places that we, as students, come to know so well in our years of study in the town.
As a third-year History and Politics student, I relish the opportunity to go beyond just studying history, but writing it, with privileged access to primary evidence. I’m very grateful to Santander for their support of this project and for funding this internship.
If any other FASS students are interested in a Faculty internship, contact the Placements and Internships Team (fassplacements@lancaster.ac.uk).