Sarah Hughes shares insights from her UEP PhD research in her post, Understanding cultural participation and value in former coalmining communities in and around Barnsley

One of the aims of the Understanding Everyday Participation (UEP) project is to strive towards a more democratic understanding of participation.  We are exploring ways in which decisions about cultural investment are made, and how they relate to particular forms and contexts for governance, nationally and in relation to different local cultural eco-systems in England and Scotland.

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UEP reflects the varied interests of researchers in the project team but Dr Andrew Miles’ chapter on cultural participation in Manchester, published in Wolff and Savage (eds), Culture in Manchester. Institutions and urban change since 1880, is perhaps the closest there is to a ‘founding text’ for the project. Continue reading →

On 22nd June I was fortunate enough to be able to attend the unveiling of Dodworth Miners’ Memorial which commemorates 288 local miners who lost their lives working in Barnsley’s coal mining industry.

IMAGE: Miners’ memorial unveiling event. Photograph by Sarah Hughes.

The project to develop a memorial was brought to fruition by the Dodworth Miners’ Memorial Fund and aimed to commemorate local miners who gave their lives to the industry and to raise awareness of the village’s industrial past.  The Dodworth Miners’ Memorial Fund group received a grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund for the project, with members of the local community having raised the additional £6,000 which was required to help fund the miners’ memorial wheel.

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My PhD research explores culture and the construction of civic identity in South and West Yorkshire in the industrial and post-industrial ages.  My project is being supervised by Dr Lisanne Gibson in the School of Museum Studies at the University of Leicester and is funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) as part of the Understanding Everyday Participation – Articulating Cultural Value project.

One of the key areas of focus for the Understanding Everyday Participation project is upon histories of cultural participation and governance.  This work aims to increase understanding of how modern perceptions of cultural participation and value have developed.  The research that I shall be undertaking in South and West Yorkshire will form a part of the historical strand of the wider Understanding Everyday Participation project.

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