Displacement Documented: Refugee Oral Histories and the Making of Community Public History

Refugee oral histories are being collected and preserved to build a new community public history archive that challenges how displacement has traditionally been documented. This matters because mainstream archives have often excluded or misrepresented the lived experiences of refugees and diasporic communities. The project brings together a historian, a public history expert, and an archivist who has spent over fifteen years working with refugee archives. They aim to redefine conventional archival practices so that these histories are told by the communities themselves, not just about them. If successful, this research could change how public history institutions—museums, libraries, and heritage centres—collect and present stories of migration. It may also influence how funding bodies like the Heritage Lottery Fund approach community-led projects. The work is primarily fundamental and methodological: it tests whether oral history and community participation can produce a more inclusive archive. There is no immediate practical application, but similar shifts in archival practice have previously reshaped how societies remember marginalised groups, from Holocaust testimony to LGBTQ+ history.