Convocation Newsletter Spring/Summer 2021 5
Convocation Trust funding of scoping project leads to further funding and study into the Windrush scandal A team of researchers led by the University of London’s School of Advanced Study (SAS) has been funded to examine how UK immigration policy changed from what was officially an ‘open door’ to a regime which led to the Windrush Scandal.
In an important strategic partnership between SAS, the Black Cultural Archives (BCA) in Brixton, and Queen Mary, University of London (QMUL), the new project seeks, for the first time, to explore this important history from a fully transnational perspective.
The three-year Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) project will focus on the history of changes to immigration policy.
Its key objective is to develop a unique digital research resource of extended interviews on the national and diplomatic activism around the Windrush scandal, supported by digitised government documents from the British and Caribbean archives.
SAS academic and lead researcher, Dr Juanita Cox, explained, “A six-month scoping project on the Windrush generation and their relationship to the British State (1948–2018) funded by the Convocation Trust pointed to a longer history behind the hostile environment of detention, deportation and denial of citizenship. It highlighted too, a broader interplay between community activism and Caribbean diplomacy.” “The AHRC award provides us with a unique opportunity to study these strands of political, diplomatic, local and administrative history and to develop a unique digital research resource, which preserves the voices of the Windrush Generation.”
It will produce 60 oral history interviews which will be available electronically, and a searchable database of existing oral history resources on the ‘Windrush generation’. The materials produced by the project will explore the links between the apparently distinct spheres of international diplomacy and community activism. It will examine how the work of Caribbean diplomats supported the efforts of the victims of the Windrush scandal and their supporters in the UK. A series of articles for the British Library’s ‘Windrush Stories’ website will enable the team to demonstrate the relevance of our project materials to a range of researchers, activists and policymakers.
