Volunteers are an underused but important resource in presenting plural heritages within large heritage organizations. We report on a qualitative study at a heritage site in the UK which combined explorations of volunteers' practice and digital design. The study comprised of observational fieldwork with co-creative activities across eight linked workshops, where we explored the site with volunteers, and how we might leverage existing working structures to make new design prototypes. Our collective account contributes new insights on working with volunteers and the opportunities that arise from acknowledging them as genius locirecognising them as experts of their own experience and capturing and supporting their skills as storytellers. Working with the volunteering staff in a codesign process we created innovative designs including our Un-authorised View, which draws out the unique perspectives and the personal stories at heritage destinations.
Despite the period after the Great Highland Famine being labelled by some historians as a period of relative prosperity for the crofting and cottar community of north-west Sutherland, poverty and occasional destitution remained the norm. This article examines the structural causes and social consequences of this recurring pattern, principally from the perspective of the owners and managers of the Sutherland estate. The views of those factors 'on the ground' revolved around the organisation of immediate assistance for the people, as well as a fear of a 'dependency' culture being the permanent result of landlord charitable aid. These views clashed with those of the estate commissioner and ducal family, who were concerned with their public image, especially in the wake of unfavourable comment on the clearances. These contrasting views were further complicated by contemporary debates about charity and Poor Law reform which, although often metropolitan in focus, had a direct impact on the Sutherland estate's response to destitution in the mid-nineteenth century.
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