Astrid von Rosen Honorary Senior Research Fellow at UCL
Within the Centre for Critical Heritage Studies a strong research collaboration between academics at the University of Gothenburg and University College London has been developed. Now, this collaboration will be taken to yet another level.
Astrid von Rosen, researcher at the Department of Cultural Sciences and Centre for Critical Heritage Studies (CCHS), University of Gothenburg, has been awarded the title of Honorary Senior Research Fellow at University College London (UCL), Department of Information Studies.
"What does an honorary position mean for you?"
“As my new Honorary position lasts for four years, I will be able to contribute to sustaining a programme of innovative and interdisciplinary work on participatory and history from below approaches to archives and archiving,” says Astrid von Rosen.
“This includes continuing the Dig Where You Stand research collaboration established in 2013 by the CCHS Archives cluster. We have plans for international publications on re-purposing the DWYS-methodology for contemporary participatory research into archives, art and activism.”
An important dimension of having an honorary position is to take responsibility for young career scholars.
“I already know I will be actively involved in the supervision of UCL DIS PhD student Bethany Johnstone,” says Astrid von Rosen. Bethany Johnstone is exploring information behaviours of dance researchers and dance archives.
What does this mean for your academic career?
“It provides an excellent opportunity for me to develop my academic leadership and critical cross-disciplinary research in new internationally relevant ways. In particular, I will be able to further the results from major Expansion and Diversity - Digitally mapping and exploring independent performance in Gothenburg 1965–2000 research project,” says Astrid von Rosen.
“Astrid’s re-appointment as an Honorary Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Information Studies at UCL is very welcome and very well deserved,” says Andrew Finn, Reader in Archival Studies and Oral History, Department of Information Studies at University College London.
Astrid von Rosen and Andrew Flinn has work together for several years at the Centre for Critical Heritage Studies, a research centre that is established both at the University of Gothenburg and UCL.
“Over the last four years and more she has contributed a great deal to the development of a joint programme of research in the field of Critical Archival Studies and Digital Humanities, and in particular the ongoing Dig Where You Stand project, between UCL and the University of Gothenburg. We look forward to continuing to develop this fruitful relationship with Dr von Rosen and the university,” says Andrew Flinn.
“We are enormously happy for Astrid's fellowship at UCL Astrid has worked hard and persistent to develop new research themes and a close collaboration with her fellows at UCL. This is, of course, not only important at a personal level, but it also confirms the importance of building strategic partnerships. We really appreciate the acknowledgment of Astrid von Rosen's work by our partner at UCL,” says Ola Wetterberg Director, Centre for Critical heritage Studies, University of Gothenburg.
Swedish author and activist Sven Lindqvist’s Gräv där du står (Dig Where You Stand) published in 1978 was one of the most important and influential texts from the ‘history from below’ movement which characterised radical, socialist and feminist approaches to history and knowledge production in the 1970s and 1980s. Functioning as a manual and activist instruction guiding workers in empowering themselves and their community by researching the hitherto excluded and devalued history of their employment and workplace, the book became the central text of the hugely popular ‘Dig-movement’ (grävrörelsen). Translated into Norwegian, Danish, German and French the book inspired similar movements in these countries. Its influence was strongly felt in the English speaking world through Lindqvist’s close contacts with the oral history and History Workshop movements, but a full translation was not published. The inspiration of basic approach (communities taking responsibility for researching and writing their own history) has continued to this day.
