Single Parent Action Network: a participatory history

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This project brings together Barton Hill Settlement (BHS), the University of Bristol and the Feminist Archive South to research the history of Single Parent Action Network (SPAN), a voluntary organisation based in inner-city Bristol from 1990 until 2016, when it was amalgamated into BHS. At its height, SPAN oversaw a network of 1000+ groups, and a significant portfolio of national and European funding. Yet it retained a distinctively grassroots and multi-racial ethos. SPAN's activities included education, research, local service provision, community organising and political lobbying. This multi-faceted history is an important example of women's, black, and working-class activism, and the evolution of the voluntary and community sector in the 1990s and 2000s.After a turbulent few years, and the loss of its premises, SPAN recently amalgamated with Barton Hill Settlement, bringing its life as an independent organisation to a close. This project aims to preserve SPAN's archive, currently at risk, and write the history of this organisation through a participatory research process. This project will bring together expertise from the heritage, voluntary and university sectors in an innovative participatory methodology. BHS is a key force for community development in inner-city Bristol, which works with over 40,000 people per annum and is extensively networked locally, nationally and internationally. Public engagement is embedded in the work of the FAS. Both PI and CI are experienced investigators on RCUK-funded historical co-production projects. The central focus of the project is a History Group, which will meet weekly at the Settlement's premises in inner-city Bristol for a period of 12 months. This group will include both academic researchers and community members, activists and service users from both BHS and SPAN. Facilitated by the project team, participants will design and execute a research project, and communicate their findings to members of the public. As outputs will be co-designed, it is not possible at this stage to say what form they will take, but possible outputs include film, an exhibition, walking tours, digital products like an app or a website, collaboration with visual or performance artists and so on. The participants in this project come from groups that rarely have the chance to engage with the university: single parents, speakers of English as an additional language, and benefits claimants. The experience of participating in the project will allow them to gain confidence and expertise, and to build social and professional networks. But the benefits for academia are, if anything, greater. These groups are ideally placed to critique ways of doing history that professional historians take for granted, and to bring different perspectives and life experiences to bear on the archival material. Members of History Group will present their findings in academic fora, such as conference presentations. In this way, the project aims to overcome the currently existing gulf between academics and practitioners of public, community and co-produced history. The academic team will also lead on five scholarly articles, addressing both the historical significance of the history of SPAN, and the methodological contribution of the project. This project builds on the team's expertise in engaged teaching and research, both in academia and in the heritage and voluntary sectors. But it goes beyond current practice in the arts and humanities to develop a participatory research methodology in which co-production is central. In this way, it aims to produce history which is rigorous, inclusive and engaging, and to communicate these new methodologies to academic researchers well beyond the discipline.