Recollecting The Region: Social Identity and Memory from the Deindustrial North East

Local identity in the North East has often been connected with nostalgic accounts of mines, ships and steel just one the edge of living memory. But such heritages have tended to focus on the peak of industrial growth in the era before the first world war – with stark contrasts of wealth, and struggles by working class people to secure a living in an era of no social security and rampant exploitation. But that time is now beyond memory and the industries too have long gone.

This contrasts with the 50s and 60s when mines were already closing and some villages were being scheduled for demolition. At the same time it was the beginnings of the prosperity of mass consumption, with full employment and regulated working conditions. Along with which went an upsurge consumption. One of the foremost local museums, Beamish: The Living Museum of the North, is thus now collecting artefacts and stories from the 1950s to recreate the post-war North East.

This project will examine how this changes local understandings to include deindustrialisation, mass consumption and modernism. What happens when unfashionable hand me downs become historic artefacts? How do current children’s relationships to their grandparents’ lives and their own region change?

The apprenticeship will involve working alongside researchers from the Anglo-Swedish project Re:heritage. Cirkulering och kommodifiering av ting med historia (Re:heritage. Circulation and marketisation of things with history) funded by Vetenskapsrådet (Swedish Research Council). This is examining similar patterns of refinding interest in second hand markets in Sweden. The apprentice will follow collecting movements in the region, tracing the motivations of people donating objects and artefacts to museums. In so doing it will examine what story the donors hope the obejcts will tell about their lives and the region.