Impact case study database

(i) National collaborations: BBC documentaries and Somme100

BBC documentaries

Following the publication of [4], a public historian and TV presenter contacted Fell for the 2014 documentary The World’s War: Forgotten Soldiers of Empire (nominated for a 2015 RTS Programme Award). A 2013 survey showed that 68% of the UK population were unaware of the participation of African men in WW1 [A]; Fell’s research [4, 5] led the programmers to include a section about French African troops’ interactions with French women. The presenter commented that ‘before discussions with Professor Fell […] this was only one of the editorial options. […] It was her ability to convey her research in a way that worked on television, on location, in a language suitable for a lay audience and with authority and passion, that ensured the sequence was filmed’ [B]. Fell was also quoted in the presenter’s accompanying book The World’s War (WW1 Book of the Year at the 2015 Political Book Awards). This interview was one of two selected for inclusion in a BBC teaching resource on colonial troops, reaching thousands of UK schoolchildren. A 2016 survey revealed that television was ‘the most widely-cited source of information about the Centenary’ with the BBC ‘by far the most likely outlet’ [A, p. 42], and that public awareness of ‘colonial troops’ had risen since 2014 [A, pp. 33-4]. The World’s War is therefore likely to have played a key role in this shift in public perceptions.

In 2018, another documentary-maker contacted Fell having read a blog based on her research on French and British women’s repatriation campaigns [6]. Fell’s filmed interview based on this research became central to the narrative of a BBC documentary, We Will Remember Them. The documentary-maker comments that his discovery of Fell’s original research marked ‘a turning point in the making of the programme. […] [Fell’s chapter] really did shape the argument.’ [C] We Will Remember Them reached over 500,000 in its first two airings, ‘more than double’ what would be expected in that time slot, while the documentary-maker notes: ‘Most of the reviews highlighted the original research [Fell has] undertaken on repatriation’ [C].

DCMS: National Commemoration of the Battle of the Somme

In 2016 Fell was appointed to the DCMS committee organising the UK commemoration of the Battle of the Somme in Manchester. Her research on women’s participation in WW1 inspired the committee to commission additional activities focusing on nurses, pacifist women and actresses for the ‘Experience Field’, aimed at a broad public audience. These included an interactive exhibition, field hospital and short commissioned play. The project director for Somme100 comments that Fell ‘was a key member of our advisory group’ helping ‘to shape our commemorative activity and also directly provid[ing] content’ [D]. The Manchester ‘Experience Field’ attracted 7413 visitors over 2 days including 1400 school pupils from 35 schools. The film capturing the event reveals an enhanced public understanding of the war’s impact on women as well as men. One older woman said that learning about the WW1 nurses was ‘interesting’ and ‘humbling’, while a 9 year old schoolgirl commented that ‘I saw an experience I hadn’t seen before and I liked learning about the nurses’ [D].

(ii) Regional collaboration: Leeds Museums and Galleries

The Legacies of War team collaborated closely with Leeds City Council in a partnership described on the front page of their evaluation report as ‘key’ to the development of their WW1 commemoration programme [E]. Fell’s research insights underpinned a joint statement produced by the University and Leeds City Council, the guiding principle of which was ‘to move beyond the idea that the conflict only affected white men in French trenches’. The Leeds WW1 programme reached 3,244,333 people [E]; Fell’s team collaborated on 17 individual projects, several of which focused on women and French African soldiers. In 2015, following her public talk and workshop based on [2] and [3], the Leeds Museums and Galleries WW1 curator asked Fell to help produce interpretation material and case studies for the Healing Home exhibition in Temple Newsam House, which focused on nurse and patient experiences. In a survey carried out by Leeds Museums and Galleries, 98% of respondents agreed that the Leeds WW1 programme had ‘taught them something new’, and 81% that as a result they ‘felt differently, or more strongly, about WW1’ [E]. The Healing Home exhibition reached 26,828 visitors. As a result, the curator commented that ‘by 2018 women are definitely more on the Leeds WW1 map than they used to be […] there’s also a more nuanced understanding of how different women’s lives were affected, and people have started to have more empathy with women’s experiences’ [F].

(iii) Collaborations with community groups funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund

Through her role as Co-Investigator on the Gateways to the First World War Public Engagement Centre, Fell collaborated with 25 NLHF-funded WW1 commemoration projects. The NLHF strategic lead for the WW1 Centenary commented that a significant benefit of Fell’s work was the way it led to ‘a greater appreciation in communities that their heritage has value and they can tell their stories with confidence and pride’ [G].

In 2017, Fell advised two Hull-based community groups: the Iranian Community of Hull and Humber All Nations Alliance. The project produced an exhibition entitled ‘Stories Behind the Pictures: WW1 Colonial Troops’. This conveyed the experiences of both Indian and, following Fell’s talk to the project steering group based on [3] and [4], French African troops. They also produced a film which captures public responses to the exhibition such as ‘I had no idea that [colonial troops] were involved in the war’ and ‘So many Muslim troops died for the Allied cause and for the British empire and I think that would really be helpful today if people knew’ [H].

In 2018 Fell was historical advisor for a photography exhibition entitled No Man’s Land at the Impressions Gallery, Bradford. This combined images taken by female WW1 photographers with new commissioned images by contemporary female war photographers. The curator exhibited photographs by Mairi Chisholm, one of the women featured in [1], commenting that ‘[Fell’s] expertise brought context, insight and academic rigour […] [and helped] me understand the larger context of women’s participation in the First World War and consider international parallels’ [I]. Fell also advised on an accompanying NLHF project with New Focus, a group of volunteers aged 14–18 who produced a book aimed at teenagers focusing on WW1 women, using case studies from [1]. The NLHF project manager commented: ‘[Fell] inspired New Focus to think outside the traditional viewpoints of the First World War and look at the points of view of women in a variety of roles. Working with a leading expert […] gave New Focus the confidence in sharing their opinions, asking questions and discussing how they could share the heritage in new ways. […] This experience inspired the whole design of the publication’ [J]. 3,500 copies of the book were sent to 63 Bradford schools and libraries and 87% of schoolchildren surveyed said they found it ‘inspiring’ [J]. This project won the 2019 National Creative Learning Heritage award and featured prominently in the NLHF WW1 evaluation report.

Publishers/publications

Weightman and The Leeds Centre for New Chinese Writing are often approached by publishers in the UK and China, and have facilitated rights transactions and book contracts. The ex-head of North Asia for Random House, who attended our first symposium, comments that we are “leading the way on sustained engagements around Chinese literature and translation internationally”, [A.1] and the CEO of Silk Gauze Audio stated: “The Centre played a fundamental role in helping me establish a new audiobook imprint focused on translated modern Chinese fiction.” [A.2] Following our Marketing Chinese Fiction workshop, Silk Gauze Audio is now in negotiations with ACA Publishing to develop their first series of audiobooks. Balestier Press produced a sales report showing that almost a third of the sales for two of their popular titles from May 2017 to July 2019 were directly attributable to Centre-based events/activities. [B]

Notwithstanding their experience in China business publishing, ACA are new to the UK literary market. They followed our advice on presentation, book design and author events and linked it to a positive impact on sales. In their view the success of one recent title “is because of how you guys have been helping us.” [C] The company’s marketing rep reported that, through our work, they had learned the importance of ‘live’ author events, which were “going to become a really big part of what we are going to do into the future.” [C]

Translators/authors

21 of the 46 authors featured in our monthly book club have visited Leeds, often citing the experience as a stepping stone in their career development. One multi-award-winning author, who is hugely successful in China, had her first English-language story published in the Irish Times in 2017. The story itself is set around the Leeds workshop she attended, while she described The Leeds Centre for New Chinese Writing as providing “stimulating and insightful exchanges on contemporary Chinese literature”, adding that it was from there that she started her “journey as an English writer.” [D] A leading translator credits the Leeds Centre with “kick-starting” the career of one of their authors of the month with schools in the UK and with inspiring another to conceive a book on language and translation. [E]

Since 2013 our annual translation competition has bolstered Chinese-English translation in the UK. [H] The competitions, attracting over 400 entrants, have spawned publications, including two bilingual books (by UK school pupils). The author of one of these attests to the linguistic and publishing skills she developed as a result in her published forward [F]. Four winners were awarded bursaries to attend a week-long translation summer school at City University in London. One, who has gone on to establish a successful career as a translator, states that winning the 2015 competition and attending the summer school “changed everything… In the four years since, I have translated four books… and numerous short stories for a whole range of publications.” [G] After working together at our 2016 symposium, a leading translator and two collaborators established the web resource, Chinese books for young readers and went on to win an award for “increasing (the) visibility” of Chinese children’s literature. [E]

Schools: Educational policy

Weightman has influenced the structure and content of the UK Chinese school curriculum by working with government and exam boards. In 2015, the Minister of State for Schools invited her to be the sole Mandarin specialist on the three-person assessment panel for the MEP tender, and thereafter to chair the Expert Panel overseeing the programme’s implementation and to join the Programme Management Board (on-going). [K] She helped to design the original shape and strategic goals of the programme and has since continued to monitor its delivery. As a result, Leeds were contracted to form a support hub for MEP schools in the North of England. Four schools’ events on the subject of incorporating Chinese culture into the curriculum, including ‘Meet the Author’ and literary translation workshops, have been held since 2018. Over 550 Y7 and Y8 pupils have attended and teachers have commented on increased pupil motivation. [H, I.1] Weightman also helps to steer the UK curriculum in Chinese language and culture by working with exam boards. She joined the Stakeholders Advisory Group for Edexcel in 2016 to review curriculum revisions to GCSE and AS/A2 level Chinese, and has worked extensively on the Pre-U curriculum.

Schools: Pedagogical Practice

Teaching materials based on [2] were created and used for workshops for 130 Y10 pupils in London and 450 Y7 pupils at three MEP northern hub days in Leeds. These have also been shared with the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Modern Languages and used for workshops at the Manchester Literary Festival and the Asian Festival of Children’s Content in Singapore (2019). The materials now inform the largest PGCE (Mandarin) teacher training programme in the UK, at the Institute of Education [H]. The Leeds network of teaching ambassadors, set up to promote literature within the Chinese curriculum, provides training which one teacher commented “has changed the way I look at literature for secondary language classroom.” Her school has now timetabled hours specifically for S1 pupils to read Chinese literature in translation. [I.2]

In response to teachers’ difficulties in locating suitable texts on the Paper Republic website for Chinese literature ( https://paper-republic.org/), the Leeds Centre engaged with teacher focus groups to develop more user-friendly framing and provided research officer support to the head of Paper Republic to redesign the database and search facility. Teachers testify that this is a major time-saver. [I.3]

We established a network of thirteen Reading Chinese book clubs in schools across the UK [H]. Book reviews from pupils and reports from teachers are uploaded onto the Centre’s website [J], prompting one school to start a Mandarin mini-library [I.4.ii]. Moreover the network has encouraged Chinese programmes to integrate more with English or other MFL departments; one primary school told us they will be using our books on English literacy during Chinese New Year. [I.4.iii] Teacher comments: “Students get lots of joy from reading and discussing about the book” [I.4.ii]; “[The book club] helped to re-engage some disengaged students, ‘open-up’ the Mandarin classroom and increase literacy amongst certain students.” [I.4.i]

(i) Building the resilience of the young safe park users

The CEO of Bishop Simeon Trust (BST) saw a particular applicability of Cooke’s research into the role of soft power in internal nation-building strategies in South Africa for the young people his organisation supports: ‘Whether soft or hard, the young people we work with generally feel entirely power less. The filmmaking project seemed to be [a] great way of helping them take power for themselves’ [A, 1, 2]. Cooke worked with BST on a series of PV projects designed to help build the resilience of users of the ISPs the organisation oversees [B, 1, 2]. ISPs provide psychosocial support for vulnerable children and young people before and after school. This is a crucial service in Gauteng (the region BST operates in), where 1 million children only have one parent at home, 400,000 have no parents, 13,000 live in child-led households and 1.3 million go hungry every day [A]. BST supports around 2,000 vulnerable young people every day across 8 ISPs.

Through Cooke’s work, 229 young people were directly trained in filmmaking, advocacy and leadership. This group engaged with a much larger number of ISP users (1,405) to produce a series of films that they showcased to the wider community to raise awareness of issues important to them, including xenophobia, undocumented children, gender-based violence and the scourge of ‘blessers’ - predatory older men who prey on school-age girls [A, B, C, D]. Participants emphasised the value of taking part in the project and the strong sense of personal achievement it gave them [1]. A particularly notable achievement for them was the way their films facilitated intergenerational dialogue with parents and guardians, helping them to articulate their concerns in a society with a strongly ingrained generational hierarchy and thus enabling meaningful and constructive dialogue about difficult topics [A, E]. Early project evaluation data saw an increase in resilience levels in participants of 23% in one of the safe parks over the course of the project. This was measured by an increase in ‘strongly agree’ response to the statement ‘I am confident that I could deal with unexpected events’ [C].

(ii) Influencing organisational practice of BST and ISP staff and Hope and Homes for Children, as well as ensuring the future sustainability of the ISPs themselves

Working with Cooke allowed BST to find new ways of actively engaging young people in shaping their own development pathways [E]. This was also a strong theme in comments by the managers of the individual safe parks with whom BST works. They invariably felt they learnt a great deal from their engagement with this programme. As one manager put it: ‘Through this programme [young people] are able to make their own decisions.’ Central to this, for the managers, was the importance of storytelling: ‘Storytelling is very important for Africans. The programme gives the young people the opportunity to record their stories,’ and through this gain a stronger sense of identity [F].

The project was also a vehicle for the organisational development of the safe parks themselves, supporting their future sustainability [C, D]. Specifically, it was used to support the establishment of functioning youth committees in each ISP, which are a statuary obligation if ISPs wish to access regional and national funding and thus ensure sustainability. Young people trained in the original PV project used their new skills and confidence to take on leadership roles in their ISP youth committee [A, C, D, I].

Over the course of the project, BST also developed a new strategic partnership with the much larger INGO Hope and Homes for Children (HHC), which works globally to deinstitutionalise childcare by embedding it more firmly within communities. HHC also saw specific value in the programme developed by Cooke and BST for their work, as their CEO makes clear: ‘The work you’ve been doing with BST has had a huge impact on our organisational thinking, helping to ensure that our policy work in South Africa is firmly rooted in the relevant community infrastructure, not only reflecting the need that has been identified by young people themselves, but in ensuring they are able to powerfully represent their own interests too’ [G].

(iii) Helping to shape the national policy framework of the Isibindi Safe Park model and influencing national, and international, childcare policy

During 2018, the Deputy Director of the National Association of Childcare Workers in South Africa (NACCW) commissioned Cooke and BST to ‘develop national guidelines’ for ‘our [NACCW’s] delivery framework for providing child and youth care’ [I]. The NACCW is the national accreditation organisation for ISPs, of which there are currently 360, providing support to about 1.4 million vulnerable young people across South Africa. Their Deputy Director was ‘particularly impressed’ with the way the programme was helping to develop high-level life skills that ‘can significantly raise the aspiration of the young people who use these services in a sustainable way’ [I], and wished to extend its benefits across the ISPs nationally. This programme was launched at the 22^nd NACCW Biennial conference in Durban 4 July 2019 [J].

The programme is now also being adopted by the Department of Social Development (DoSD) to support the delivery of ‘YOLO’ (You Only Live Once), a youth empowerment programme designed to support national youth leadership [A, G, H]. The Director General of DoSD and the CEO of HHC also used materials drawn from Cooke’s programme for their submission to the Commonwealth Heads of Government (currently chaired by Rwanda). Here, HHC reported that Cooke’s work gave them ‘the means of including the voices of children and young people’ [G], allowing them to secure a declaration on community childcare reform which reflects children’s needs. Their CEO specified: ‘The insights that we’ve gained from your [Cooke’s] work on youth empowerment have been central to this success’ [G].

Sharp noted that dissenting voices and German perspectives, particularly women’s anti-war activism, were being overlooked in the UK’s WW1 centenary commemorations, and sought to embed them into the public narrative. The main beneficiaries were Sharp’s external partners from the peace history and activist community, the creative and heritage industries as well as theatre, conference and exhibition audiences and MOOC learners.

(i) Peace History and Activism: amplifying and internationalising anti-war voices.

Sharp worked closely with leading activists within the peace community, sharing her knowledge of German anti-war resistance and women’s role within it and inspiring others to make their own contributions to peace history awareness. This work was informed by her study of the historical roots of contemporary peace organisations and the many continuities that help us understand and measure the effectiveness of anti-war campaigns over time.

The reach and resonance of Sharp’s research is reflected in the unusually high number of national and international invitations to contribute to commemorative events beyond the academy, including some high profile international events such as the German Foreign Office (December 2014), the Kiel Maritime Museum (March 2016), the Kansas National WW1 Museum, America’s official WW1 museum and memorial (October 2017), the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom centenary conference in Zurich (May 2019), and the Tshisimani Centre for Activist Education, South Africa [I].

Between 2014 and 2019, Sharp’s public-facing activities included 53 related talks, interviews, podcasts and lectures locally, nationally and internationally as well as published articles for a wider readership [I]. The scale and scope of the interventions show that Sharp’s ongoing and sustained efforts to link her historical research to present-day anti-war and gender activism resonated strongly with the public. In 2016, she organised two public-facing international peace history conferences in Leeds in 2016 (300 delegates from activist and academic communities), that took a comparative approach across several countries to questions of gender and peace history.

In 2014, Sharp co-founded the national Peace History working group, which brought activists and academics together to coordinate and amplify peace history efforts during the centenary. She worked in particular with the Convenor of the Peace History working group and Peace History Conferences at the Imperial War Museum, who is also a member of the First World War Peace Forum, and a Vice-President of the international peace society Pax Christi. For this person Sharp’s work ‘brought an otherwise missing dimension’ to their events, and made it ‘impossible to consider planning a WW1 “peace history” event that did not examine the German experience’ [A]. She felt that Sharp’s inclusive approach ‘made a real difference, helping to bridge the gap between academics and campaigners’ and thus challenging entrenched hierarchies of knowledge. In particular, it stimulated local groups ‘to research the history of opposition to the war in their area, to create exhibitions and local events of their own to mark the centenary – and to make sure the experience of women was included’ [A].

(ii) Women of Aktion: play and exhibition

Changed Practice

Sharp worked collaboratively over 18 months with partners Bent Architect Theatre Company (BA), on the Women of Aktion theatre project, focused on the Kiel Uprising [E]. BA is a socially engaged theatre company with a commitment to bringing lesser known historical stories to the contemporary stage which brings cultural value to Bradford, a culturally diverse city with a high proportion of economically deprived citizens. Sharp’s research and translations of primary sources in German allowed BA to create a historically accurate and ethically justifiable portrayal of the protagonists, which spoke powerfully to the audience’s emotions and sense of justice. BA attest that their experience of working with Sharp caused a shift from highly localised, site-specific projects to a more ambitious national and international approach. ‘It is the first time we have toured abroad’ and ‘we reached new and wider audiences with untold history’ [D]. Sharp’s input enabled a more nuanced, layered historical understanding and gave BA access to German-language materials. ‘It’s really brought us on professionally, I think it’s really changed the way that we will work from now on’ [C] ‘and opened up a whole new working methodology for us’ [D].

Changed Understanding

The play has won critical accolades as a piece of theatre ( [H/i] ‘What’s on Stage Top Pick’ 30.10.2019) that was ‘powerful, funny and taught me loads!’ [H/iii] and successfully ‘sneaks research into an engaging and entertaining show.’ [H/iii] It toured in theatres in the UK and Germany, with 17 performances reaching a total audience of 1,000. Audience responses recorded on film [C] and social media show empathy with the characters’ suffering, admiration for the women and surprise, even anger, that these powerful stories had been suppressed [H/iii]. This was especially important in the German city of Kiel, where the city’s role in the revolution has historically been forgotten or considered shameful [F] and the commemoration privileged male accounts while erasing women’s history. One viewer commented: ‘The actors play their roles with such appealing energy that you can’t help sharing their outrage at being left out of the history of the revolution.’ [H/iii]

Sharp also worked with the Chair of the Bradford Peace Museum to produce an exhibition entitled Women of Aktion informed by her research insights into women’s contribution to the Kiel Uprising of November 1918. The exhibition has so far been displayed at the Bradford Peace Museum, a pop-up shop in Bradford city centre, MShed Bristol, Manchester Central Library, Manchester Working Class Library, Leeds City Museum, Glasgow Women’s Library and Richmond Barracks, Dublin, mostly accompanied by public talks. Commenting on the Bradford iteration, the Museum Chair noted that ‘For a largely British audience, used to a male, military, patriotic and establishment analysis of that time, it was revelatory to engage with narrative and critique that were female, civilian, German and revolutionary’ and that Sharp’s input had ‘changed the historical understanding and perception of all who engaged with it’ [B]. Responses elsewhere have included emotional engagement and identification with the revolutionary women: ‘[t]he rallying call of revolutionary German foremothers echoes down the century’ [H/iv] (Tweet 30/08/2019).

Further plans to exhibit as part of the Newington Green Revolutionary Ideas since 1708 festival in April-May 2020 were interrupted by COVID-19. The project has an accessible database [G] that offers a template for academics wanting to work effectively with creative partners, reflections on the project and teaching materials including mini-lectures, worksheets and summaries for schools and colleges wishing to follow up on topics raised by the project.

**(iii) MOOC: **Changing Faces of Heroism

Sharp led the Leeds bid to work in partnership with the BBC, culminating in the BBC/Futurelearn MOOC ‘Changing Faces of Heroism’/’Heroism through Art and Culture’. This reached a global audience (39,172 participants from all inhabited continents registered from October 2014 to December 2018) and attracted highly positive evaluations and 22,550 unique participant comments, 2,344 specifically on Germany [J]. Sharp’s transnational anti-war activism research was prominent in the course, challenging dominant attitudes to heroism coded as masculine and nationalist.

Participants’ comments and engagement reveal that they thought more comparatively and critically about a wider range of heroic figures, including women, war resisters and German nationals as the course progressed. E.g. ‘Where have I been all this time! I have been giving the women who took part in the war very little consideration and got swept along with the attention given to the men’ [J] (comment ID 2555400).

Seeger’s findings were disseminated via:

• Publication of Damrong Tham with correct attribution [1], and Hat Tham and Thong Tham with probable attribution to Khunying Damrongthammasan [2, 3].

• Performances based on texts [1] and [2].

• Films of and about the performances and a documentary on the authorship of the texts in [1].

The impacts have been as follows:

Public interest in the authorial reidentification: Seeger’s revelation that Khunying Damrongthammasan was the true author of Dhammānudhammapaṭipatti prompted significant interest from the Thai media, Buddhist scholars and the general public. The Thai newspaper Matichon (daily circulation 700,000) published a full-page article on the research with the headline ‘The ripple in the dhamma: anonymous writer believed to be Luang Pu Man is Khunying Damrongthammasan (Yai Wisetsiri)’ [B]. The significance of [1, 2 and 3] for practising Thai Buddhists is further confirmed by public interest in financing their dissemination. The Thai Foundation Panyaprateep, which supervises a religious school, subsidised the costs of printing and distributing 13,200 copies of the texts, supplemented by over 150 private donations [1, 2, 3]. Seeger and Naris also co-produced a documentary film on the life and work of Khunying Damrongthammasan, Lost in the Mists of Time, with the Thai documentary film company Six Fingers. This film was screened by the major national public television broadcaster ThaiPBS on 19 July 2016, one of the most important days in the Thai Buddhist calendar. Its reach was extended via YouTube (16,500 views) and Facebook (71,000 views), where numerous positive comments indicate strong engagement.

Thai nuns ( mae chis) and other women: Since the presumed author of the major texts in Damrong Tham was already considered an awakened being, Seeger and Naris’ disclosure of the actual author’s identity as female provides justification for women’s ability to accede to the highest spiritual plane of nirvana, which is normally considered to be reserved for fully ordained male monks. The publisher of [1] noted that the confirmed authorship ‘reminds people that it is not only men that can achieve the supramundane in Buddhism but women also have the same ability to teach the Buddhist teaching and achieve the supramundane’ [H]. The reidentification has certainly revealed a potent example of the understanding of the dhamma which a woman can achieve through a combination of scholarship and religious practice. A famous Buddhist author, intellectual and revered monk compared [1 and 2] with a ‘bright light’ that ‘makes us see female practitioners of the dhamma a hundred years ago in a different way’ [F]. It thus provides inspiration for women today to practise towards the same achievement. A leading mae chi and committee member of the national Thai Mae Chi Institute remarks that Seeger’s discovery ‘has been very important and impactful for us mae chis’, who ‘have become deeply inspired […] and encouraged in their work for society and want to follow the footsteps of Khunying Damrongthammasan’ [E]. Another mae chi and meditation teacher, having viewed one of the performances based on the texts, commented: ‘Discovering that this text was really written by a woman has filled my heart with motivation and joy. The more I read about the biography of Khunying Yai, the more impressed I became, and the more it inspired my own spiritual practice’ [D].

Performers and audiences: The Thai monk Buddhadasa Bhikkhu’s observation in the late 1930s that Hat Tham read somewhat like watching a play provided the intellectual spur for the development of devised theatre performances based on [1] and [2]. Devised theatre involves performers directly in the production process, taking into account their responses to the text and building their experiences into the performance. It thus offered a way of helping performers and audiences to revise their understanding of Thai Buddhist doctrine and women’s contribution to it. The scripts, production and direction were developed in workshops with Thai academics, students and professional actors under the leadership of Seeger and Naris, and led to the production of performances presenting a female teacher and her pupils learning about and debating the dhamma together. These performances were presented before mostly urban, educated audiences at the Thai Universities Burapha (6 April 2018; over 150 people) and Thammasat (23 June 2019; around 60 people) and the prestigious Buddhadasa Indapanno Archives Foundation in Bangkok (7 April 2018 to around 200 people and 22 June 2019 to over 100). They had an important impact on the female directors and performers. The director of the 2018 performances felt that for the performers, creative engagement with the texts had ‘changed their understanding of and developed a more positive view on Buddhism’ [I]. The director of the 2019 performances commented that the process of putting together this play, combined with her spiritual practice, was ‘the best learning of the Dhamma in [her] entire life’. [J]. The results of post-show questionnaires distributed to the audiences also indicated that 139 out of 234 respondents (i.e. 59%) felt that their understanding of gender in Buddhism had changed as a result of watching the performances. One commented ‘I am now more interested in the role of women in both the history and practice of Buddhism’ and another that ‘it has filled me with sheer joy to see a play made up of women, who communicated the teachings very clearly’ [A].

Buddhist pedagogy: Thai Buddhist teaching traditionally focuses on sermons and textual study, while performances are reserved for telling stories of the Buddha. The performances based on Seeger’s findings were innovative in using a devised performance, accompanied by music, to explore religious insights, and still more so in centring female characters. As such, they offered an alternative means of engaging with Buddhist teachings, particularly for younger Thai Buddhists who may perceive traditional forms of Buddhist pedagogy as of little relevance to their own religious practice. The success of this approach was confirmed by responses from the performers and audiences. 220 out of 234 respondents (i.e. 94%) strongly agreed that the performing arts was an effective tool for teaching Buddhist doctrine. They commented that the play had enabled them ‘to understand Buddhism in a new, positive way’, was ‘very applicable to the modern era’ and had inspired them to read about and study Buddhism further [A, C]. One stated: ‘I never thought the Buddha's teaching could be taught through a play. Thank you for showing me that plays can be an effective tool in spreading the dhamma’ [A]. These insights were especially important for the Director of the Buddhadasa Indapanno Archives Foundation, a centre of Buddhist learning which hosted two of the performances. He commended the originality of the approach, observing that ‘we have never offered anything like this before’ [G]. Inspired by an initial performance in 2018, the Foundation commissioned Seeger and Naris to develop an ongoing performance programme. Their institutional practice thus changed as a result of their contact with Seeger’s research findings. The Director stressed the educational dimension to the productions, arguing that by encouraging people to ‘rethink preconceived ideas about gender and specific teachings in Buddhism’ the performances become an effective means by which they can achieve their goals [G]. The Foundation also supported Seeger and his team in producing and disseminating two films based on the performances, which has allowed their research to reach a much wider audience. These films have achieved more than 72,000 views, further demonstrating public interest in this form of Buddhist teaching.

House’s research has had an impact on public discourse, local communities and individuals, through his role as an advisor for politicians, community associations, individual memory activists, local historians, journalists and filmmakers and in the co-production of knowledge. Nationally, House’s retelling of little-heard stories of resilience, repression and solidarity has supported a more complex assessment of the plural experiences of colonialism, decolonisation and their legacies. Locally, it has provided a better understanding of decolonisation and reinforced community and individual pride.

(a) National level: French presidency and government. House’s research on Algiers, Casablanca and Paris has underlined the contribution of poor urban areas, groups and events during decolonisation and the importance of recognising the roles and experiences of local actors. House’s reputation as an expert on these issues led to his being consulted by the French Secretary of State for War Veterans and Memory about President Hollande’s role in the 19 March 2016 commemoration of those who died during decolonisation in North Africa. The Secretary of State met with House to seek his advice on whether the President should appear at this event at all, how to ensure inclusivity through the content and presentation of this high-visibility speech, and on official French memory policy more generally. At this meeting, House gave the Secretary of State a copy of [1] ( Paris 1961), and he confirms House’s ‘key’ role as advisor, while his policy advisor attests that House’s input ‘strongly influenced’ Hollande’s speech [B] . The Hollande speech as delivered [A] explicitly calls 17 October 1961 ‘the most brutal repression’, and includes the main points House made to the Minister regarding the need to recognise the complex legacies of colonial history and to incorporate the perspectives of ordinary Algerians and Moroccans [B]. House also underlined the necessity of more inclusive histories when invited by the Algerian Ministry of Culture to speak at the 2014 Algiers Book Fair, the largest annual cultural gathering in Algeria, and when talking at the Museum for Mediterranean Civilizations (MUCEM) in Marseille at a high-profile 2018 event in honour of public historian Benjamin Stora attended by France’s Minister of Higher Education. House’s many other public talks, as well as his extensive interventions across the international media (Algeria, France, Morocco, Qatar, Turkey, UK, USA) have had ‘strong impact’ [C]. They have consistently foregrounded the agency of poor urban communities often written out of dominant histories and memories, and have highlighted the legacies of colonial repression and its spatial dynamics [D].

(b) Community level: civil society associations. A wide range of community-based history / memory retrieval projects have used House’s research. His work has evidenced the role played by their areas during the struggle for independence, thus helping them to work for symbolic reparations and recognition, alongside promoting urban heritage projects. For example, he has worked with Initiative urbaine ( https://www.facebook.com/Association-Initiative-Urbaine-102754409816012/), a largely youth-based organisation located in Carrières Centrales, also known as Hay Mohammadi, a post-industrial suburb of Casablanca (population approximately 50,000). House sent this group publications [3] and [5] and met with them to advise on their district’s social and political history. As a result, Initiative urbaine’s founder and president attests that they have undergone ‘an historical and cultural awakening’ allowing him to see the ‘bright side’ to his home area otherwise often known for alleged criminality. This change has led to plans, with which House is closely associated, for an urban heritage project that will serve locally as a ‘lever for (urban) development’, including the association’s creation of a neighbourhood museum. This activity has also reinforced inter-generational community solidarity, as the members of Initiative urbaine interact with older generations in pursuit of their hidden – and positive – local history [E].

(c) Individuals (Algeria, France, Morocco). Between 2013 and 2020, House worked to share his research findings and materials, publications [1-5] and advice with local residents, community historians, memory activists and other actors, thereby providing significant resources and evidence for their work. Beneficiaries included residents from Mahieddine, a social housing estate built on a former shantytown in central Algiers (population approximately 10,000). For one, a local memory activist, House’s arrival was ‘a true gift’ [F]. He is committed to improving perceptions of Mahieddine, and has used House’s expertise to campaign with others to have a public building dedicated to local wartime nationalist hero, Badeche: guillotined in 1957, but largely forgotten since. House has also worked closely with a former political prisoner and author of newspaper articles on Carrières Centrales shantytown, his birthplace. Through the provision of archival material, House allowed this person to ‘sharpen’ his existing understanding of the history of Carrières Centrales – about which he regularly speaks locally and in documentaries. He feels that House ‘instigated’ his participation in cultural exchanges between young people in Casablanca and the Paris region regarding Hay Mohammadi’s history, and that House is someone whose input was 'needed' and whose work ‘passes on our memory’ [G].

Indeed, House’s impact on individuals was achieved not merely through the dissemination of existing research findings, but also through a research process involving the co-production of knowledge with people whose areas have suffered social stigmatisation, memorial marginalisation and (often) repression. Including such residents as interviewees and co-producers of their own local history empowers them, makes them feel ‘honoured’ [H] and enhances their awareness of and pride in their own past. According to one locally-based historian who has published on Carrières Centrales, organises community history events there with Initiative urbaine, and with whom House has conducted interview-based fieldwork, House’s interviewees were left with ‘a profound sense’ of Carrières Centrales’ role in ‘national struggle and armed resistance’ going beyond official and limiting versions of this past (1944-1956) in Morocco. This produced ‘feelings of comfort and pride [ amongst interviewees] and of the need for more interest in their local history’ and ‘a change of image for the female residents’ [I]. The local memory activist from Mahieddine also refers to the ‘pride’ that local residents feel when House evokes Mahieddine urban area in his public talks that highlight ‘the distinctive qualities of these humble people from an area of Algiers that many from Algiers itself don’t even know exists’ [F]. A professional historian of Algeria and France who has undertaken fieldwork with House in Mahieddine has confirmed that House’s research process constitutes ‘a rare occasion for actors to speak (out) and express their experiences, allowing for the writing of a different history – that of their participation in the independence struggle’. Consequently, House’s work has had a ‘key impact in freeing up expression for these subaltern actors’ [J].

Since the 1970s, the MSAL, their cultures and ecosystems have been threatened by sedentarisation, urbanisation, motorisation, education in Arabic, and migration to and from the region. After the Dhofar war (1963-75), the Oman government stressed social and cultural unity rather than diversity, purposefully neglecting MSAL languages and cultures.

Watson’s research involved community speakers in a project to revitalise and disseminate information about the languages, designed to extend well beyond the lifetime of the western researchers. Watson’s team gained the trust of both community members [A, B, C, D, E, G] and the authorities [A, E, F] by affiliating with no single tribe, involving 195 speakers from 10 different (sub-)tribes from 20 different language / dialect groups, sustaining contact with speakers and local researchers, and sharing findings openly.

The project has had the following impacts:

Language revitalisation: through script

The project developed an Arabic-based script for all MSAL, which was made available online and successfully disseminated among community members. Before 2013, texting between MSAL speakers was always in Arabic [B, C]. ‘[T]exting in Mehri is one of the most important outcomes of the project… Now there is a big number of Mehri and Shehri speakers text{ing} in their native languages.’ [B] ‘I never used to write [Mehri]… Now when I want to send something to my parents or my friends, I write to them in Mehri and they understand it and write back to me in Mehri.’ [C.2] Over 60 community members use the new script to communicate on social media: ‘Now me and my friends have a WhatsApp group and we write to each other in Mehri.’ [C.2] In 2019, Google used Watson’s script and word lists to create a Mehri GBoard for easy text entry on smartphones. Watson then supplied additional characters to a Google Senior Software Engineer allowing the Mehri GBoard to be upgraded to support Shehret as well [I]. Five children’s e-books were also produced using the script [D].

Language revitalisation: raising language status

The project promotes language revitalisation by encouraging speakers to speak and write their language. Older, illiterate community members have become teachers of MSAL [C.3], posting voice messages in response to queries from younger speakers on WhatsApp groups. Younger community members now teach the languages to their children. ‘The young generation had felt that Mehri was irrelevant… [then] they wondered: “Why are British people interested in studying our language? It must be of great historic importance.”’ [C.4]

This work raised the profile and status of the languages amongst speakers themselves and in the wider Arab community [B, G, H], and has been influential in establishing the Mehri Center for Studies and Research (MCSR) in Yemen [D, F], of which Watson is the only non-Mehri, non-Yemeni committee member. The MCSR says ‘this project has aided [Mehri] greatly though winning international recognition for it and allowing it to participate in research projects with globally recognised academic institutions’ [F].

Revitalisation had a particularly marked effect on the small, low-status Bathari community (12 speakers). The attitudes of Bathari speakers towards their language changed markedly during the project. A journalist for The National writes: ‘Khalifa Al Bathari expressed great pride {in} his work with the linguists and said the community’s renewed interest and respect for Bathari stemmed from the attention shown by researchers. This was repeated to me independently by several women from Shuwaimiyyah, who proudly named relatives interviewed by academics.’ [A]

Community training and upskilling

Watson’s project upskills community members, many with little or no schooling, providing them with transferable skills in data collection, digital recording, digital tools, project management, training of others, research dissemination and production [B, D].

Community training

15 community members were trained to induct other community members in language documentation, ethical methods, use of the new script, and translation. ‘I have learned how to document and write the language.’ [B.2] ‘I learnt how to use… ELAAN… PRAAT and Tool Box… and I liked that’ [C.3]. Two community members co-trained (with Watson) Mehri speakers in the documentation of biocultural diversity in al-Mahrah [D], who produced their own archive for ELAR, collecting 202 audio/audio-visual files from 21 speakers representing 7 tribal groups and 5 dialects.

Research co-production

51 project presentations in mainland Europe, UK [D], USA, Arabia and online (during COVID lockdown) were delivered jointly with community members, endowing them with presentational skills. One writes: ‘I enjoyed [giving] lectures very much, especially when I saw the reaction of the participants hearing these languages.’ [B.4] MSAL speakers co-produced six publications, including [1, 4, 5, 6], providing them with the skills and confidence to produce their own academic papers. Another community member was centrally involved in all collaborative outputs, including children’s e-books, two published in Language & Ecology (2020).

Making women’s voices heard

Muslim women are traditionally reluctant to record their own voices, or have their names mentioned publicly. The project recorded 25 women who now act as teachers of MSAL heritage to their younger relatives. MSAL women co-produced two pieces of underpinning research: three MSAL-speaking women collaborated on [5], and one monolingual Mehri woman collaborated on [5, 6]. As a result, she now enjoys enhanced status as the ‘dictionary’ of her community.

Documenting threatened culture and legacy

‘The Mehri language is the product of a profound culture and history and… [would] gradually [face] the prospect of near extinction without the devoted efforts of academics like… Bart Peter (Daughter of Peter (Watson))’ [C.4]. The project gave younger local research assistants insights into the pre-motorised past and increased their interest in learning about it [A, B, C]. ‘Listening to the recordings… made me realise what our communities have lost in terms of skill and knowledge and has opened my eyes to how altered and degraded our environment has become’ [B].

Watson et al’s MSAL archives, linked in Ethnologue OLAC, provide the largest bank of audio/audio-visual data for any endangered Semitic language family. During 2014-2019, the Mehri and Shehret archives were visited 4,560 and 3,133 times respectively, by community members, the UK public, UNESCO staff, people with an interest in flora and fauna, and researchers. ‘This collection is an exceptional resource for scholars and is having a substantial impact scientifically’ [D]. Legacy work continued with the British Library, whose catalogue ‘now includes the content of the 20 [MSAL] sound recordings you assisted us with, making them accessible to the general public’. The BL have thus been able ‘to reconnect a portion of these sound recordings with the family members of the speakers featured in them, continuing the collaborative and proactive cataloguing process’ [J].

Twenty-seven online workshops on Language and Nature in Southern Arabia hosted during COVID-19 lockdown [D], and attended by professionals from organisations including the Environment Society and Kew Gardens, have made community members’ knowledge of their flora, fauna and environment available to international audiences.