AHRC Care for the Future: Thinking Forward through the Past

Town Meetings May/June 2013

Andrew ThompsonUniversity of Exeter

Theme Leadership FellowFellow’s Project: “Afterlives of Empire:

Thinking Forward through an Imperial Past”

© Crown copyright. IWM (FKD 2028)

Source: http://www.humanrightsfirst.org

Source: Wiki Commons

Theme map

Created by Hattie Allsop, AHRC

Overview of the theme• How the relationship between the past, present and future shapes our

understanding of the world around us.

• Critical reflection upon the concepts that are used to join together past, present and future – including ‘memory’, ‘legacy’, ‘heritage’, and ‘progress’.

• Critical reflection upon the different emotions evoked by reflecting on the past – denial, forgetting, trauma, nostalgia, mourning and celebration.

• Representations of the future of humanity can shed light on our hopes and fears for the present.

• How we value cultural heritage, and the historical work that informs our understanding of that heritage.

• Explore new ways of thinking about temporal relationships, including of the notion of time itself.

Care for the Future: Sites of Engagement5 major sub-themes:• Questions of temporality and history• Inter- and cross-generational communication, justice and

exchange• Trauma, conflict and memory: transitions to new futures• Cultural notions of the future• Environmental change and sustainability

Collaborations with other AHRC/cross-council initiatives:

• Connected Communities• Cultural Value• Translating Cultures

• Researching Environmental Change

• Living with Environmental Change

Questions of temporality and history

Nelson, Deconstructing the Grand Narrative: Using Different Time Concepts and Temporal Frameworks to Uncover New Voices and Meanings in Museum Collections

Source: http://www.datavis.ca/gallery/timelines.php

Inter-generational communication, justice, and exchange

Archard, Generating Justice: The social, legal, political and ethical issues of ensuring justice across generations

Image: irrational.org – Heath Bunting

Trauma, conflict and memory: transitions to new futures

Woodward, Caring for post-military futures: alternative development futures for former military sites in the UK

Image: Simon Burchell, Wiki Commons

Cultural notions of the future

Fyfe, Recreating the late Victorian popular science experience

Source: www.thequietus.com

Environmental change and sustainability

Lavery, The Future of Ruins: Reclaiming Abandonment and Toxicity on Hashima Island

Source: http://sometimes-interesting.com

Co-ordinating Centres for Community Research and Engagement to Commemorate the Centenary of the

First World War

Future plans for the Theme

Source: Wiki Commons

September 2013 Conference Centenary of the 1913 Ancient Monuments Act

with English Heritage, National Trust and Society of Antiquaries

Image: English Heritage

Future events – Scheduled & In planning

• Workshop for Early Career Researchers, January 2014 – with call for ECR developmental awards

• ‘Making History Work’ Public Policy Workshop series with the Institute for Government, January - May 2014

• Major International Conference for the Theme in 2015• Cultural Value - Role of Culture in Post-Conflict 

Transformation

© Carol Ormand, http://serc.carleton.edu

Theme Large Grants

• Beacons of the theme

• £1m - £2m FEC, up to 5 years, 2 – 4 awards

• Nature of large grants

– Ambitious, transformative projects

– Collaborative: across institutions, disciplines, sectors & internationally

– Building research capabilities