Refugee community oral histories: issues in pedagogy and curriculum development

Abstract

The article explores a community-based project documenting the histories of 15 refugee communities in London with a major exhibition at the Museum of London. While the focus of the article is concerned with the educational aspects of the project, an important argument suggests the inseparability of educational and pedagogic issues from a wider set of political influences. The article begins with an overview of the Refugee Community Histories Project, followed by a more detailed discussion of the postgraduate courses that made up its educational component and concludes with a reflection on the tensions arising from the differing priorities and interests of the project's participants.

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Dr Jenny Harding and Dr Stephanie Linkogle for their comments on a previous draft of this paper.

Notes

1. The Evelyn Oldfield Unit for Refugees is an umbrella refugee organisation based in north London.

2. Dr Jenny Harding and I were involved with the project as members of the Department of Applied Social Sciences at London Metropolitan University, one of the partner organisations.

3. The Heritage Lottery Fund is a grant making body which awards money raised by the British National Lottery to charities.

4. A postgraduate Masters course at London Metropolitan University comprises six modules each with their own curriculum, assessment, etc. In addition to these taught elements, there is a 10–15,000 word dissertation.

5. The work of the Child and Woman Abuse Studies Unit and members of the Social Work team.

6. The Prison Media Project which supported a radio station at Wandsworth and media centre at Downview prisons.

7. The Refugee Assessment and Guidance Unit was incorporated into the Department of Applied Social Sciences in 2006.

8. The Centre for Trade Union Studies.

9. Other key references referred to in this part of the course included Alessandro Portelli's chapter from Rob Perks and Alistair Thomson's edited collection The Oral History Reader, articles from the journal Oral History (Miller 2000; Rafeek et al. 2004) and Joanna Bornat's chapter, ‘Oral History’ from Clive Seale et al.'s Qualitative Research Practice.

10. Key sources here included K. Woodward's (1997) collection Identity and Difference, Elizabeth Tonkin's (1995) Narrating our Pasts and K. Hodgkin and S. Radstone's edited collection Contested Pasts: The Politics of Memory.