Public History, Civic Engagement and the Historical Profession in Britain

Abstract

My purpose is to test the proposition that academic historians are central – rather than peripheral – to the practice of public history. Public history generally refers to work that is pursued outside the academy, by the combined efforts of historians and lay people, often pursuing a heritage agenda with a strictly local remit. The resulting enlargement in the scope of historical enquiry is greatly to be welcomed, but it should not be treated as the sum total of public history, still less as grounds for disparaging the historical profession. The civic importance of academic historians arises from their ability to enhance public understanding of national and international issues which form no part of ‘public’ history as usually understood, because they transcend questions of locality and identity. The health of a representative democracy depends in part on the citizen's readiness critically to examine issues which do not affect him or her directly but which are in the public interest. This argument was first made by the leaders of the historical profession following the Second Reform Act in 1867. During and after the First World War it was put into practice, not least within the pages of History (taken over by the Historical Association in 1916). More recently the relationship between active citizenship and critical history has been re‐asserted for the digital age by the History and Policy website.

Placeless and barrier-free? Connecting place memories online within an unequal society

“…The internet’s connective and shared aspect is, however, not straightforward, particularly concerning public memorial discourse. Several scholars worry about the popular making of memories as fragmented and privatised (Tosh, 2014; Zuckerman, 2000), and indeed some online spaces have been argued to be particularly individualised and divisive (Berry, 2012; Papacharissi, 2002). While Berry (2012) proposes that software could enable ‘modes of collective knowledge’, he also finds individualising trends in online outputs such as blogs, comments and twitter feeds (p. 9).…”

“…The use of ‘history’ rather than ‘memory’ is interesting in this context. It could be an indicator that the website creators intend these photos and stories, as well as being personally or collectively meaningful as memories for particular bounded groups, to be of general and shared importance (Jakubowicz, 2009; Tosh, 2014). At the same time, Historypin invites people to share their own photos and stories, with no restrictions as to relevance or ‘importance’ to the histories of their local communities, indicating that any personal stories have import for (local) history.…”

You are what You Ate: Consuming the Past to benefit the Present

“…feel that they have lost ground to museums and the media, wishing to reclaim a perceived former central role in the public's reception of the past. 20 There has been very little effort to analyse critically the often very fruitful collaborations that academics have long had with non-Higher Education institutions. Some of these partnerships were developed more recently in order to demonstrate the impact of academic research for the Research Excellence Framework (REF 2014) imposed on British universities.…”

Engaging People in Making History: Impact, Public Engagement and the World Beyond the Campus

“…In this model, recently discussed in History by John Tosh, academics -particularly historians -can use their knowledge and intellectual expertise to contribute to the democratic society in which they live. 32 The UK organization History & Policy promotes this approach. 33 Thirdly, public engagement can involve members of the public as citizen historians, scientists or researchers, able to be more actively involved in academic research and to contribute to collecting and analysing data in some form.…”