Remaking Britain: South Asian Connections and Networks, 1830s to the present

《重塑英国》关注的是档案记录和口述历史如何揭示南亚人民和社区作为改变英国文化、经济、政治和社会生活的力量，从19世纪30年代帝国时期到现在的重要意义。它将向公众观众、社区团体和学者开放、生成和重新呈现南亚英国的档案。通过揭露南亚人在英国鲜为人知的影响和遗产，该项目将对历史、文化和文学调查进行关键干预，揭示英国文化-政治身份的复杂、质地生产。中心，该项目将探索如何以及如何能够记录、记忆和叙述英国各地的南亚网络和联系，并将在一个可公开访问的数据库中将档案资源、口述历史和研究成果联系起来。与大英图书馆合作，它将创建一个免费的互动研究资源，包含关于人、组织、事件和地点的相互关联的条目，以可视化南亚人在英国的嵌入存在。除其他外，将重点关注代表性不足的群体，如工人(例如，海员、小贩、家政工人、纺织工人和今天的‘关键工人’)和文学和更广泛的创造性艺术(例如，作家、编辑和戏剧从业者)，以追踪网络及其社会和文化影响。该项目延续了AHRC以前资助的两个项目的工作：《制造英国：国内外愿景(1870-1950)》和《超越框架：印英关系》，这两个项目由OU/QMUL(OU/QMUL)领导，为该领域正在进行的研究奠定了重要基础。最初项目的核心是2010年推出的一个数据库。鉴于技术创新和档案数字化努力的增加，该项目将显著扩大研究，以创建一种新构思的数字资源，使这一多方面的历史栩栩如生。吸收旧的数据库后，它将大幅修改和扩展其内容，将其追溯到1830年并一直延续到现在，纳入新的档案发现以及对经历过非殖民化和隔离的一代人的新的口述历史访谈。新的数字人文工具和技术将被用来在英国的南亚人中绘制出以前没有记录的网络，将他们与其他种族主义少数族裔和占多数的白人连接起来。C.750计划的参赛作品将辅之以声音文件、图像和数字化档案材料，以及供学童、教育工作者和成人学习者使用的学习资源。该数据库的设计和功能将通过用户体验工作室与公众合作产生。该项目位于数字人文、历史和文学研究的交汇点。通过关注网络(在个人之间、跨群体和地理空间)，并着眼于长远的历史观点，它将介入并扩大目前关于移民、侨民和归属感的辩论。它突显了英国鲜为人知的长期相互交错的移民历史的复杂性，这将使人们对南亚人在英国定居的了解复杂化。在对档案材料和口述历史的挖掘和分析中，该项目将扩大旨在发展非殖民化档案实践的学术研究，并促进关于艺术、遗产和文化部门非殖民化的对话。它将与大英图书馆合作，为教师和学童以及公众提供关键工具，以了解和探索英国的历史和当代文化，这些文化包括其南亚居民、公民和社区，并由其塑造。至关重要的是，该项目将加深和复杂化当代关于归属感和家园的公共辩论，并有助于重塑英国和英国人的观念。

'Remaking Britain' is concerned with how archival records and oral histories reveal the significance of South Asian people and communities as agents of change to Britain's cultural, economic, political and social life from the period of empire in the 1830s to the present. It will open up, generate and re-present the archive of South Asian Britain for public audiences, community groups and academics. By exposing the little-known impact and legacies of South Asians in Britain, the project will make key interventions into historical, cultural and literary inquiry, revealing the complex, textured production of Britain's cultural-political identities.Centrally, the project will explore how South Asian networks and connections across the UK have been and can be documented, remembered and narrated, and will link archival resources, oral histories and research findings in a publicly accessible database. In partnership with the British Library, it will create a free interactive research resource with interconnected entries on people, organisations, events and locations to visualise the embedded presence of South Asians in the UK. Among others, a key focus will be on underrepresented communities such as workers (e.g. seamen, pedlars, domestic workers, textile workers & today's 'key workers') and the literary and more broadly creative arts (e.g. writers, editors & theatre practitioners) to trace networks and their societal and cultural impact. The project extends the work of previous AHRC funded projects 'Making Britain: Visions of Home and Abroad (1870-1950)' and 'Beyond the Frame: Indian-British Connections', led by Susheila Nasta (OU/QMUL), which laid important foundations to ongoing research in this field. Central to the original projects was a database launched in 2010. Given technological innovations, and increased archival digitisation efforts, this project will significantly expand the research to create a newly conceived digital resource that will bring this multi-faceted history to life. Absorbing the old database, it will substantially rework and expand its content, extending it back to 1830 and up to the present, incorporating new archival findings as well as new oral history interviews with the generation who lived through decolonisation and partition. New digital humanities tools and techniques will be used to draw out previously unrecorded networks among South Asians in Britain, connecting them to other racialised minorities and the white majority. The c.750 planned entries will be complemented by sound files, images and digitised archival materials, as well as learning resources for schoolchildren, educators and adult learners. The design and functionality of this database will be generated in collaboration with the public through user experience workshops.The project is positioned at the intersection of the digital humanities, history and literary studies. By focusing on networks (among individuals, across groups and geographical space) and by taking a long historical perspective, it will intervene in and extend current debates about migration, diaspora and belonging. By highlighting the complexities of Britain's lesser-known long intersecting migration histories, it will complicate knowledge of South Asian settlement in Britain. In its excavation and analysis of archival material and oral histories, the project will extend scholarship that seeks to develop a decolonial archival praxis and contribute to conversations about decolonising the arts, heritage and culture sectors. In collaboration with the British Library, it will provide key tools for teachers and schoolchildren, as well as members of the public, to understand and explore British history and contemporary culture as inclusive of and shaped by its South Asian inhabitants, citizens and communities. Crucially, the project will deepen and complicate contemporary public debates on belonging and home, and help to remake ideas of Britain and Britishness.