School of Humanities lecturer Dr Eugene Michail is documenting the histories of those involved in the recent ‘refugee crisis’ on the Greek island of Chios.
The aim of the project is for refugees, local communities and international volunteers to write their recollections of their common experiences living on the island.
“University historians need to engage with history as it unfolds in front of us” says Eugene, “We need to do so in order to resist the rise of racism and bigotry which relies on a heavily edited version of our recent past. The Fake News of today will be the Bad History of tomorrow. We must produce good histories of today that talk directly to the people that lived them.”
Those taking part in the project will decide what stories they want told, find their subjects and record the stories.
The project began last summer with a series of articles inviting the interest of the local community, now the project is moving to the phase of collecting its first stories interviews, diaries, Facebook logs, photos, anecdotes etc. The information gathered will be collated in a digital archive accompanied by a blog that will share a selection of its records.
“This is a local project, which means it is moving slowly. But it is exactly this nature of the project that it makes it very real and useful for its users, and a great pleasure for me” says Eugene.
Published by