The co-production of historical knowledge: implications for the history of identities

Abstract

This essay argues that understanding people’s lives, emotions and intellectual reasoning is crucial to exploring national identity and that ‘the co-production of historical knowledge’ provides an approach or methodology that allows for a deeper comprehension of people’s self-identities by encouraging a diverse range of people to participate in the research process. We argue that many academic historians have maintained an intellectual detachment between university history and public and community history, to the detriment of furthering historical knowledge. We argue for a blurring of the boundaries between university and communities in exploring modern British history, and especially the history of national identities. It includes extracts of writing from community partners and a brief photographic essay of projects related to exploring identities