Impact case study database
- Submitting institution
- The University of Manchester
- Unit of assessment
- 28 - History
- Summary impact type
- Societal
- Is this case study continued from a case study submitted in 2014?
- No
1. Summary of the impact
Dreyfus’s research examines the treatment of human remains during and after mass violence and genocide. The collaborative Corpses of Mass Violence programme and Dreyfus’s individual research have: 1) altered processes of mass grave exhumation by NGOs; 2) contributed to the work of the International Committee of the Red Cross and the UN Human Rights Council to develop new guidance and standards for the treatment of the dead in humanitarian emergencies and for the handling of mass graves; 3) informed the training of forensics students in France and medical and legal practitioners working in Africa; and 4) influenced the practices of researchers in medical and research institutions, including informing the work of a German medical research institute in its ongoing effort to address its own treatment of Holocaust victims.
2. Underpinning research
Corpses of Mass Violence (CMV) was a European Research Council programme carried out between 2012 and 2016. Dreyfus, a historian at The University of Manchester (UoM), directed the programme with the anthropologist Elisabeth Anstett (CNRS, Paris). The multidisciplinary research team included Jonathan Shute (UoM Law School), Sévane Garibian (Geneva) and Caroline Fournet (Groningen). CMV brought together perspectives from history, social anthropology and law to assess how societies have coped with one of the most pressing consequences of genocidal violence: the mass production of dead bodies. With a focus on three primary issues – destruction, research and identification, and the return of human remains to society – CMV explained how various social and cultural treatments of dead bodies simultaneously challenge common representations, legal practices and morality [1, 2]. The findings were disseminated through several peer-reviewed publications, all open access, including a new academic journal, Human Remains and Violence, published by Manchester University Press. Five edited volumes were published, of which four [1-4] were edited by Dreyfus and Anstett, each with a co-authored critical introduction by the editors. Dreyfus’s specific research contributions included: writing on corpses of the Holocaust; the transfer of ashes and body parts as a commemoration process; the integration of anthropology into historical research; and religious aspects of the CMV programme.
Alongside the collaborative CMV research, Dreyfus contributed individual scholarship, including the British Academy-funded project ‘Disclosing Post-Holocaust and Deportation Exhumations’, which examined the French search for the material remains of the Holocaust and related deportations [5, 6].
The key findings fall into three main categories:
1. Genealogy and the globalisation of exhumations. The research described and analysed the many occurrences of corpse searches, exhumations, and identification processes during the 20th Century [1, 2]. It explained the tremendous efforts made to search for and recover the corpses of civilian victims of mass violence and genocides and revealed the diversity of engagements with corpses on the part of individuals, families, religious communities, national administrations and international organisations. The sheer scale of these search, recovery and identification efforts was not understood before the CMV research. In the example of the Holocaust, tens of thousands of corpses were exhumed and reburied.
2. Analysis of ‘power play’ over corpses. The research examined the role of NGOs in relation to the roles and responsibilities of police and military forces, various state administrations, the Churches and other religious authorities (Jewish, Christian and Muslim), as well as in relation to the needs of families of victims and the survivors themselves. The research found that forensic research can be conducted ethically, respecting the needs and requests, but also the reticence, of all communities involved. Dreyfus et al. crafted the term ‘forensic turn’ in the course of the research to describe the critical role of forensic pathologists and anthropologists as ‘the decisive agents’ of new practices of transitional justice and the political, social and diplomatic implications of their work [3, Introduction, p. 4]. They argued that the recent globalisation of the forensic turn has revealed new problems, but that the very possibility of the exchange of experiences among practitioners and academics can lead to ways of pursuing respectful exhumations.
3. New practices in the treatment of recovered body fragments and skeletons. The research considered the influence of DNA banks on political movements and the emergence of co-management of exhumations with families, called ‘forensic civicism’ [4, 6]. CMV demonstrated the importance of specific cultures and traditions in the treatment of corpses en masse but also the shared problems and challenges. For example, Jewish law normally forbids exhumation, which meant that new legal decisions had to be made. Similar questions emerged in relation to Islamic law, for example in Bosnia after the genocide.
The research outputs have opened up and strengthened the field of genocide studies by providing proper intellectual grounding and theoretical tools for a better understanding of the aftermaths of mass violence in today’s societies. The term ‘forensic turn’ is now widely used in genocide/Holocaust studies [3]. CMV and Dreyfus therefore plugged an analytical gap, and were well-placed to engage with and influence increasingly common, practical, encounters with mass graves today. Exhumations of genocide sites, the legacies of twentieth-century mass violence, have recently been, or are currently being, undertaken in (among many other countries) Germany, Belarus, Ukraine, Poland, Bosnia, Rwanda, Spain, Argentina and Uruguay.
3. References to the research
Dreyfus, J-M., & Anstett, E. (eds) (2015) Human Remains and Violence: Methodological Approaches (1 ed.) (Human Remains and Mass violence). Manchester University Press. https://www.manchesteropenhive.com/view/9781526125026/9781526125026.xml
Dreyfus, J-M., & Anstett, E. (eds) (2014) Destruction and Human Remains: Disposal and Concealment in Genocide and Mass Violence. (1 ed.) (Human Remains and Violence). Manchester University Press.
https://www.manchesteropenhive.com/view/9781526125002/9781526125002.xml
Dreyfus, J-M., & Anstett, E. (eds) (2015) Human remains and Identification: Mass Violence, Genocide, and the ‘Forensic Turn’. (Human Remains and Violence.) Manchester University Press. https://www.manchesteropenhive.com/view/9781526125019/9781526125019.xml
Dreyfus, J-M., & Anstett, E. (eds) (2017) Human Remains in Society: Curation and Exhibition in the Aftermath of Genocide and Mass-Violence. (Human Remains and Violence.) Manchester University Press.
Dreyfus, J-M. (2016) Le docteur Julius Hallervorden et sa collection de cerveaux en République fédérale d'Allemagne. Vingtième Siècle. Revue d'histoire, 131, 139-150.
Dreyfus, J-M. (2015) The Transfer of Ashes after the Holocaust in Europe, 1945-1960. Human Remains and Violence, 1(2), 21-35. Open access.
The quality of the underpinning research is demonstrated by its successful passage through peer review, its translation into languages other than the original English and/or French, and by positive reviews in leading journals. Julie Fleischmann in Genocide Studies International described [2] as “outstanding research” (2015).
Key grants:
2012-2016. PI Anstett; Co-organiser Dreyfus. European Research Council, ‘Corpses of Genocide and Mass Violence’, ERC-2011-STG-20101124-283617, UoM awarded GBP310,800 (total project value EUR1,197,367)
2016-2017. PI Dreyfus. The British Academy, ‘Disclosing Post-Holocaust and Deportation Exhumations: The example of the French national search mission for corpses, 1945-1958’, ‘Thank-Offering’ Fellowship, SF150085, GBP45,760
2018-2019. PI Dreyfus. University of Southern California, Centre for Advanced Holocaust Research, Senior Fellowship, GBP21,000
- PI Dreyfus. Foundation for the Memory of the Shoah Paris, Funding for research mission in Lithuania, EUR3,000.
4. Details of the impact
The CMV research was produced in the context of a steady expansion in the practice of exhumation as a way of coming to terms with violent pasts and as part of transitional justice processes across the world. For example, there has been a re-discovery of WWII corpses, such as in Holocaust mass graves across Central and Eastern Europe; a re-emergence of victims of the Gulag in post-Soviet territories; and a move towards identification of the ‘disappeared’ from periods of the Latin American dictatorships. Alongside these developments there has been a growing demand from local civil societies, victims’ families and NGOs to take the fate and dignity of human remains more into account. By linking anthropology, archaeology, forensic techniques, history and psychology, the research has contributed to globalising a new, socially and culturally sensitive approach to the handling of bodies and mass graves in post-genocide contexts.
The impact of the research is demonstrated in four key areas:
1. Forensic teams and NGOs: linking forensic exhumations to civil societies. The CMV research involved extensive engagement with forensic teams, judges and representatives of major humanitarian NGOs, including Doctors without Borders, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and Merlin. Practitioners participated in 15 project workshops (see [A], for example), which together facilitated reflection on the history of the ‘forensic turn’ [4, 6] and created a forum for the exchange of best practice and knowledge. A leading forensic scientist with the National Museum of Natural Sciences in Spain, explains that CMV allowed participants to “ debate crucial issues in the […] historical and socio-political processes where human bones play an integral role.” [B] In this way, CMV enabled practitioners to reflect and develop their practices in dealing with corpses and facilitated the development of a new set of principles for best practice in contexts of mass violence.
The workshop outcomes led to fundamental changes in the practice of forensic teams between August 2013 and the present. Practitioners from countries including Mexico, Argentina, Spain and the UK and from a dozen organisations and research institutions confirm that their consequent understanding of the genealogy of exhumations changed their ways of working [B, C, D, E]. The project produced and shared new knowledge concerning political conflicts over mass graves and the different forms of identification involved in exhumation processes. The leading forensic scientist states that CMV was “an important influence” on his exhumation work of Francoist regime victims. “Specifically, the project has influenced our approach to the concept of identification. […] naming a deceased with a degree of scientific certitude through the comparison of antemortem with postmortem evidence is not the only possible identification at play in human rights investigations.” [B] He continues: “Affective and political identification are both present during the exhumation and in the returning of the bones for a dignified burial. […] I don’t hesitate to state that the debates promoted by the project The Corpses of Mass Violence and Genocide have been a very important contribution in this direction.” [B]
Forensic practitioners testify that this research has led them to take into account the humanitarian, political and social dimensions of their exhumation work. Now the needs and interests of the many stakeholders involved in exhumations are considered in an informed way and the various cultural and religious practices of affected communities, including emerging ones, are better understood. In practical terms, it led exhumation teams to consider their relations with the media and to make more ethically aware decisions about the use of the pictures they produce in the course of their work. An archaeologist who led the official commission in search of the corpses of dictatorship victims in Uruguay explains that the research and collaboration with CMV “ changed the way I dealt with the public aspect of corpse recovery. I could modify the way I work with the media, the way to announce the exhumation of a corpse, being made aware of the tremendous impact those announcements had.” [D] The research also led them to work with families of victims with due sensitivity to help identify, memorialise and rebury remains with dignity. In turn, the new approach “ really changed Uruguay politics and society. The procedure to return the corpse to the family was also conducted in a smoother way, as I was made aware of the complex game of power around recovered human remains […] .The team I have trained, and myself, have learned to accompany the relatives of those Detainees Disappeared.” [D]
2. Contributing to international guidance and human rights standards. In 2018, based on their participation in the CMV project, members of the research team were asked by the ICRC to convene a meeting of specialists to develop guidance to guarantee the dignified treatment of the dead in humanitarian emergencies. This meeting, and the resulting written report, built on the expertise of the CMV team and its findings [F], agreeing “on the need to address the appropriate and dignified handling of the dead not only in relation to how it might be conceived through forensic protocols, training and practice, but also in connection to the social, cultural and religious aspects that surround the recovery and identification of the dead in crisis scenarios”. Beyond that, the risks that standardisation of practices may involve have been identified. CMV research was also integrated into the last report that the Special Rapporteur of the Human Rights Council on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, Agnes Callamard, submitted to the UN General Assembly (75th session) (2020) [G]. The report makes recommendations for steps towards respectful and lawful approaches to the handling of mass graves. Following an interview with Dreyfus in March 2020, the insights of Dreyfus and those from other CMV participants and CMV publications are included in the report. Specifically, they inform the report in relation to: religious and cultural considerations in the treatments of mass graves [G, p. 6]; memorialization, reburial and public display [G, p. 11]; and the participation of families and affected communities in the recovery of loved ones [G, p. 12]. The work of the CMV project clearly appears in the report’s recommendations, particularly paragraph 90 [G, p. 20] requiring ‘the active, meaningful participation of victims’ families and communities upon whose land mass graves are located, possibly ensured through such standard as that of “free, prior and informed consent”’.
3. Training of forensic practitioners. The research has directly shaped the training of forensic practitioners. Since 2015, Dreyfus has led a team that organises and delivers an annual two-week course for postgraduate degree forensics students at La Timone medical school in Marseille. Drawing on insights from the research, especially [3], the course, ‘Archéologie et anthropologie des conflits armés récents’, embeds humanities perspectives into what had hitherto been a purely technical field. The course explains the current conditions of mass exhumations and case studies of exhumation practices on historical, anthropological, and judicial levels. The CMV team initiated the proposal to run the course and worked with La Timone to integrate it into the school’s training programme. This particularly specialised and prestigious course is unique and path-breaking in Europe. Between 2015 and 2020, the 60-hour course reached 150 forensics students. The programme director states that the course has “modified the way French experts but also practitioners who work with them and whom we train, now conduct their work’” and has “ contributed to inaugurating a more humanistic dimension to their expert work” [C]. The course has also opened new employment routes beyond the traditional positions offered to forensics graduates. It has been successful in “diversifying the positions for which our students can apply. They can apply to international organisations (such as the International Committee for the Red Cross) or to NGOs in charge of identification or corpses in post-conflicts contexts. One of our former students works for the prestigious EEAF (Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team)” [C]. Several graduates are now engaged in important recovery work with the International Criminal Court and national criminal courts and NGOs.
The research prompted the establishment of a new permanent professional course on forensic medicine at the University of Geneva. The six-month course, ‘Droit, médecine légale et science forensique en Afrique’ [H], was in part designed by CMV team member Sévane Garibian, with the intervention of several members of the CMV team, drawing on the various findings of Dreyfus and the CMV project. The training is aimed at medical and legal practitioners and civil society representatives working in these sectors in Africa. Module 3 has been heavily influenced by the CMV findings and for the first time merges international criminal law and transitional justice with forensic medicine. First delivered in 2019, 12 students have completed the course. A second session began in autumn 2020.
4. Influencing the memory politics and practices of medical and research institutions. Dreyfus’s research has informed processes of commemoration. For example, it has influenced the Max Planck Institute for Brain Research (Frankfurt) in its ongoing effort to address its treatment of Holocaust victims. Drawing on his article on Julius Hallervorden [5], Dreyfus co-wrote a documentary: Action T4: A Doctor Under Nazism (2014). Broadcast on national television, France 3, on 29 February 2016, this Zadig Production directed by Catherine Bernstein was viewed by approximately 1,200,000 people on its first broadcast and won ‘Best Documentary’ at the 2016 Luchon Film Festival. It deals with the post-war fate of both Hallervorden and the 2,000 brains and brain tissues collected by him, many of which became housed in the Max Planck Institute. The documentary contributed to the Institute’s initiative to recognise and commemorate this past [I.i], and particularly the treatment of the remaining tissues of children killed by the Nazis and used for research even into the post-1945 period. The Institute’s Managing Director explains that the documentary “contributed to convincing administrative officials of the Max Planck Society of the importance of publically recognising the exactions perpetrated by Hallervorden and changing its attitude towards publicising the murdered children and teenagers’ identities” [I.ii].
The research has also changed the way corpses of the Holocaust are handled. An example of impact concerns sites of Holocaust mass killing. These sites are currently being ‘remade’ and this is challenged by the demands of Jewish law and traditions, which generally forbid exhumations. CMV research on historic excavations [2, 3], which were first done without care in the post-war period before being totally banned after 1989, enabled more fine-tuned reflection on the tensions between Jewish traditions, the demands of Jewish communities, the interests of museum curators and those of scientific researchers. This reflection informed renewed and more sensitive excavation practices. An archaeologist active in the excavation of the Treblinka death camp (800,000 Jewish victims) states that the research “has raised awareness of how the inappropriate treatment of corpses in the aftermath [of] episodes of mass violence can perpetuate the trauma inflicted upon communities and has provided core theoretical frameworks for scholars and practitioners like myself engaged in search, recovery and other aspects of post-conflict treatment of the dead. This deeper understanding of the challenges and failings of past exhumations has helped inform my own practice which focuses on the development of ethical approaches to archaeological investigations of Holocaust sites.” [E]
5. Sources to corroborate the impact
Workshop programme: ‘Search and Identification of Corpses and Human Remains in Post-Genocide and Mass Violence Contexts’, Manchester, 9-11 September 2013.
Testimonial from forensic scientist, National Museum of Natural Sciences, CSIC, Spain (12 November 2018).
i) Testimonial from programme director, Aix-Marseille Université [ In French; translation in section 4 by UoM]; ii) Course description and timetable for Archéologie et anthropologie des conflits armés récents.
Testimonial from archaeologist, Universidad de la República, Uruguay (23 October 2019).
Testimonial from Professor of Conflict Archaeology and Genocide Investigation, Staffordshire University (15 January 2020).
The development of guiding principles for the proper management of the dead in humanitarian emergencies and help in preventing their becoming missing persons: First Expert's Meeting: Geneva, 30 November–1 December 2018 (2019). International Review of the Red Cross, 101(912), 1213-1229. DOI:10.1017/S1816383120000223
Report on mass graves by the Special Rapporteur of the UN Human Rights Council on
Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary executions (12 October 2020).
University of Geneva course, Droit, médecine légale et science forensique en Afrique: https://www.unige.ch/formcont/cours/scforensique-afr#t1
i) Commemoration activities at the Max Planck Institute (MPI) for Brain Research: https://brain.mpg.de/institute/history/a-dark-period/recent-developments.html; ii) Email evidence from MPI (12 November 2018) [ In French; translation in section 4 by UoM].
- Submitting institution
- The University of Manchester
- Unit of assessment
- 28 - History
- Summary impact type
- Societal
- Is this case study continued from a case study submitted in 2014?
- No
1. Summary of the impact
Davey and Taithe’s body of research has produced one of the first historical analyses of the emergence and development of the humanitarian aid sector and historicised its practices. It has, for the first time, brought historical analyses into the strategies and training of two of the four largest Nobel Prize-holder global humanitarian organisations, Médecins Sans Frontières and Save the Children (more than 60,000 humanitarians worldwide), allowing critical humanitarian histories to inform humanitarian futures. Their historical expertise has been deployed in the humanitarian sector and contributes to research and policy agendas for INGOs, funders and standard-setting organisations, shaping the entire humanitarian sector. This has integrated historical thinking in accounting for ongoing work. It also impacts on record keeping and archiving practices. The research also contributes to reshaping the educational agenda of global humanitarian agencies.
2. Underpinning research
Taithe’s late-1990s work on humanitarian history was a vital precursor to what is now a dynamic field of enquiry. Taithe works primarily on historical consciousness in the humanitarian sector and the shaping of epistemic communities in humanitarian practice. The research explores the genealogies of aid, looking at missionary genealogies, colonial encounters and forms of humanitarian governance [1]. Most recently, the research has been integral to the development of a policy-relevant investigation of pre-1912 practices of fundraising and accountability within the charity and humanitarian sectors [2]. Taithe’s current research on Cambodia involves the development of new archival practices for humanitarian archives and historical analysis of ongoing medical work on hepatitis C.
Davey (University of Manchester, May 2014-October 2019) previously held a position at the DFID-funded think tank Overseas Development Institute (ODI), where she specialised in the relevance of history for humanitarian policy and practice. Her research emphasises the evolution of public debates in which humanitarian agents participate, highlighting the important role played by political agendas and the interface between human rights, international aid, and domestic activism [3]. Davey’s research has brought an original history of ideas approach to humanitarian studies, countering a tendency to focus on institutional archives and related methodologies.
Taithe and Davey’s research has focused on tracking the dynamic origins of humanitarianism, the professionalising dimension of the sector and key ideas that have shaped how humanitarianism has grown as an applied practice. Methodologically this research stresses knowledge co-production [4] with users and practitioners as a method of historical enquiry. It invites a growing awareness of the uses of history, archives, and ideas about the past in humanitarian decision-making processes.
The research has contributed a number of important insights for the field:
Revealing the heterogeneous origins of the humanitarian sector [2];
Questioning institutional narratives that present humanitarianism as timeless and apolitical [1];
Furthering understanding of the development of manifold professional practices within the humanitarian sector (advocacy, fundraising, public relations, accountability) [5];
Historicising reform agendas and processes within and around the humanitarian sector [3, 6].
Taithe and Davey’s experience as applied researchers is captured in a series of working papers and joint publications with humanitarians [4], many of which have translated into academic work, designed to further knowledge exchange between different research users and producers [6]. The research is impact-led from conception through to publication and beyond; it consistently engages with current practices and invites humanitarians to think historically within their practice in situ. For example, the Disasters special issue [6], edited by Davey with a contribution from Taithe, was the first time this profession-facing journal had ever been devoted to historical questions in its 40-year history. Interdisciplinary and fully peer-reviewed, Disasters is the most important forum for critiques of humanitarian response in conflict and disaster settings; it reaches broadly to international non-academic and humanitarian practitioner audiences.
3. References to the research
Outputs
Taithe, B. (2016). The Cradle of the New Humanitarian System? International Work and European Volunteers at the Cambodian Border Camps, 1979-1993. Contemporary European History, 25(2), 335-358. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0960777316000102
Roddy, S., Strange, J-M., & Taithe, B. (2018). The Charity Market and Humanitarianism in Britain, 1870-1912. Bloomsbury. https://doi.org/10.5040/9781350058019
Davey, E. (2015). Idealism Beyond Borders: The French Revolutionary Left and the Rise of Humanitarianism, 1954-1988. Cambridge University Press. Available from HEI on request.
Abu Sa’Da, C., Duroch, F., & Taithe, B. (2014). Attacks on medical missions: Overview of a polymorphous reality: The case of Médecins Sans Frontières. International Review of the Red Cross, 95(890), 309-330. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1816383114000186
Taithe, B. (2016). Danger, Risk, Security and Protection: Concepts at the Heart of the History of Humanitarian Aid. In M. Neuman & F. Weissman (Eds.), Saving Lives and Staying Alive: The Professionalisation of Humanitarian Security, Hurst, 37-53. Available from HEI on request.
Davey, E., & Scriven, K. (2015). Humanitarian Aid in the Archives: Introduction. Disasters,
39(s2), s113–s128. https://doi.org/10.1111/disa.12150. Introduction to special issue, Aid in the Archives: Academic Histories for a Practitioner Audience.
Evidence of quality
The quality of this research is demonstrated by considerable financial support from national research agencies (see below), and by successful passage of resulting publications through the peer review process. Idealism beyond Borders [3] was reviewed as a “rigorous intellectual history” ( Journal of Contemporary History), an “erudite piece of historiography” ( International Labour and Working Class History) and was awarded the International Studies Association (ISA) Ethics Section (IETHICS) Book Award in 2017. With more than 7,000 members, ISA is one of the oldest interdisciplinary associations dedicated to understanding international, transnational and global affairs.
Supporting grants:
2011-2014. ESRC, ‘Charitable consumption: Innovation in compassion in Britain, 1870-1912’, The University of Manchester (UoM) awarded GBP284,073. Co-I Taithe. PI Julie-Marie Strange. ES/I031359/1
2014-2017. The British Academy, Postdoctoral Fellowship, ‘Relief and the People: Humanitarianism and the Struggle for National Liberation’, UoM awarded GBP223,728. PI Davey. PF140068
2019-2023. Department for International Development/Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), ‘Measuring the Impacts of Attacks on Healthcare’, UoM awarded GBP1,562,153; total value GBP2,500,000. Co-I Taithe. PI Larissa Fast. This project includes a historical work package essential in the design of the research aims.
4. Details of the impact
Taithe and Davey’s research has had a multi-level impact on analysis, decision-making and training in the international aid sector. It has brought historical methods and analyses into the strategies and training of two of the four largest Nobel Prize-holder global humanitarian organisations, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) and Save the Children (SCF). This impact-led research has directly influenced the expansion and diversification of historical research capacity in the humanitarian sector, and, by extension, helped to improve the efficacy of relief work. Aid organisations typically have limited capacity for in-house research and policy analysis, making the role of applied research centres and academic advisory positions crucial. The research of Taithe and Davey informed and contributed to some of the most important humanitarian policy think tanks in the UK and Europe (Centre de Réflexion sur l’Action et les Savoirs Humanitaires (CRASH) for MSF; Humanitarian Affairs Team for SCF), while also advocating for historical perspectives in major global forums shaping aid agendas such as the steering committee of Active Learning Network for Accountability and Performance (ALNAP); Fondation de la Croix Rouge; International Humanitarian Studies board; and the World Humanitarian Summit.
Research agendas of organisations
Through the production and co-production of research specifically for humanitarian practitioner readerships, this research has renewed INGOs’ and humanitarian think tanks’ internal research agendas. Through this work historical perspectives are now routinely included in debates and projects. Leading think tanks the Humanitarian Affairs Team (SCF) and CRASH (MSF) have initiated new historical projects of their own as a result (several monographs advised by Taithe; edited volumes; occasional papers). Historical considerations highlighted through the research have shaped the way that both individual NGOs and think tanks with a sector-wide focus approached consultations for the United Nations World Humanitarian Summit, a series of international meetings culminating in a conference in Istanbul in 2016. For example, SCF’s Humanitarian Effectiveness project, launched at Istanbul, considers evolving understandings of efficiency and value in aid work and was framed in historical terms, citing multiple publications by Taithe and Davey, including [3] [A]. The study advocated for more regular use of historical methods to ensure “a more rounded perspective on the environments in which humanitarians operate and the effects of humanitarian action within them” [A, p. 87]. The Humanitarian Director at SCF UK thus states in relation to Taithe’s work: “a key part of my role has been to foster far greater critical reflection within my organisation’s leadership space in order to look afresh at our own and the wider sector’s history… That simply would not have been possible without [Taithe’s] personal guidance and involvement” [B].
[text removed for publication] The research also extensively informed a flagship report by the ODI’s Humanitarian Policy Group. Time to Let Go [D] cited Davey’s research several times in its 80 pages, and included a section specifically focused on ‘learning from history’ [D]. The report draws on the research particularly to support the diagnosis of weaknesses in systemic reform as “ less a failure to acknowledge and learn from past mistakes […] and more a failure to use historical analysis to critically explore some of the foundational assumptions on which the system rests” [D, p. 12]. The research has also changed the direction of MSF’s work on security, away from offering a public relations campaign and towards a research agenda devoted to the study of attacks on healthcare. Taithe’s plenary lectures on historical perspectives on attacks on healthcare debates at the Berlin Humanitarian Congress in 2014 made an intervention captured in an article co-authored with MSF [4]. This shift of emphasis produced a book [5] on which the director of CRASH comments: “[Taithe’s] chapter on the history of the notions of danger, risk, security and protection was of great added value to that project” [E]. The shift towards more research to inform humanitarian practice secured a DFID/FCDO-funded research project (approximately GBP1,500,000 awarded to The University of Manchester; see section 3, grant (iii)) involving MSF, the International Committee of the Red Cross, the World Health Organization and in collaboration with Chatham House, the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University (Taithe Co-I). It also influenced the strategy of sector-wide influential think tank, CRASH, contributing to its publications, including an historical project for MSF on Hepatitis C in Cambodia [1] and the development of two major CRASH-led historical accounts of humanitarian work.
The critical organisational and sector history is now accepted and used as part of current NGO policy-making and decision-making. When the Operations Department of MSF France commissioned a critical review of the operations carried out between 2015 and 2016 in Borno State, it included a “ detailed historical account”. The director of CRASH writes : “working together has made us… more historically minded than previously. Studying the precedent of relief operations and organizations, critically looking at humanitarian buzzwords and at dominant discourses that are often marred in historical ignorance contributes to forging a culture in which myths play a lesser role” [E]. They now value historical methods to produce better plans and policies. Practice-based organisations such as MSF and SCF now commission research work which employs historical methods to inform programmes and reform decision-making and policy framing, for instance ex-MSF president Jean-Hervé Bradol and Marc LePape’s historical account of humanitarian aid during the Rwandan Genocide. It has reshaped the writing of evaluation reports and policy papers [A, D, F], evidence of a durable shift which enables NGOs to comprehend their role over time and produce more nuanced policy-making debates [D, G]. As the director of CRASH testifies: “ *For MSF, which dedicates important resources to the learning and development of its staff, there is no question that historical thinking contributes to having teams in charge of relief operations that are more astute.*” [E]
Steering of norm-setting organisations in the humanitarian world
Thanks to their historical research profile, both Davey and Taithe have contributed to important debates and policy groups for the entire humanitarian system, in this way informing the development of professional practice for the sector. Taithe, uniquely for a historian, has been invited to take high-profile roles in the humanitarian sector: he has served on the Conseil Scientifique of CRASH since 2013; as a Trustee of UK-Med since 2014; Trustee of the Mines Advisory Group since 2017; and was on the advisory board of the Humanitarian Policy Group-ODI Global History Project between 2011 and 2014. In 2014, he was elected by the NGO member organisations to serve on the steering committee of ALNAP, the largest global learning network of NGOs, UN agencies, members of the Red Cross/Crescent Movement, donors, academics and consultants, and was elected in 2016 to the board of the International Humanitarian Studies Association as the first historian of this organisation’s governing body. After receiving the Fonds Croix-Rouge Française’s Prix de Recherche in 2016, Davey served as the sole historian on the Conseil Scientifique of its successor foundation between 2018 and 2019.
These roles have ensured the far-reaching influence of their research, including participation in the New York and Geneva United Nations humanitarian preparatory meetings and the final World Humanitarian Summit in 2016, which produced the ‘Agenda for Humanity’ – endorsed by most global humanitarian organisations and United Nations agencies [G]. Taithe was the only historian signatory of the commitments for academia formed as part of this Agenda, ensuring history features as part of the commitment to evidence-based humanitarian action [G]. Extending collaborations with the United Nations system, in 2016 the Humanitarian and Conflict Response Institute (HCRI) became a collaborating centre of the World Health Organization and in 2018 hosted the world meeting of collaborating centres working on emergency humanitarian responses. The WHO collaborating centre status was renewed in January 2020 under Taithe’s leadership, in recognition of the “valuable contribution” to research [H]. The collaborating centre was made its first partner on the ‘triple nexus’ – the relationship between humanitarian aid, development and peace. Only two other collaborating centres on this domain have been identified to date.
Training and practice in the humanitarian sector
The embedding of historical thinking in the humanitarian sector led to the recognition of its importance in training programmes and events. The research [1, 2] has informed the development and delivery of such training, utilising the findings on epistemic communities and the politics of aid. It produced the historically-grounded training of NGO personnel and underpinned the overall curriculum design for two classes of the Save the Children course Critical reflection and humanitarian affairs in 2018, and in 2019 for workshops to MSF staff on the uses of history in ongoing humanitarian work. These very well received workshops, entitled Histoire synchrone, built on [1]. MSF commissioned Taithe to create a history course unit for its new postgraduate programme, launched in 2019 by MSF, HCRI and the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine. The course reached three cohorts of 60 students originating from the cadres of MSF, mostly national staff of MSF from every region in which the organisation operates from Afghanistan to Yemen. This demand echoed previous exchanges with MSF staff on the need to use historical methods to contextualise and improve understanding of humanitarian work. At the request of MSF, the history course has been made compulsory for all MSF staff undertaking their MSc since 2018 (between 60 and 90 per year). As the Director of Studies at Fondation MSF testifies: “ Our senior staff…has realised the extent to which history carries lessons for their current practice...all of those I personally debriefed have expressed their enthusiasm in discovering the use of historical methods for their own work” [I].
5. Sources to corroborate the impact
- The Humanitarian Affairs Team, Save the Children, ‘The Echo Chamber: Results, Management and the Humanitarian Effectiveness Agenda’ (2016):
Testimonial from Humanitarian Director, Save the Children UK, documenting the impacts for SCF of the research collaboration with Taithe (November 2020).
[text removed for publication]
ODI Humanitarian Policy Group, ‘Time to let go: Remaking humanitarian action for the modern era’ (2016): https://www.odi.org/sites/odi.org.uk/files/resource-documents/10422.pdf
Testimonial from Director of CRASH, Médecins Sans Frontières, documenting the contribution of Davey and Taithe’s research in stimulating critical reflection on humanitarian practices within MSF (9 January 2020).
Michaël Neuman, MSF CRASH, ‘Dying for humanitarian ideas: Using images and statistics to manufacture humanitarian martyrdom’ (15 February 2017):
Statement of Commitments from Humanitarian Scholars at the World Humanitarian Summit: https://ihsa.info/content/uploads/2017/11/Commitments-WHS.pdf
World Health Organization letter of renewal of HCRI as a Collaborating Centre (14 January 2020).
Testimonial from Director of Studies, Fondation Médecins Sans Frontières, corroborating the impact of Davey and Taithe’s historically-grounded training for MSF staff (9 January 2020).
- Submitting institution
- The University of Manchester
- Unit of assessment
- 28 - History
- Summary impact type
- Societal
- Is this case study continued from a case study submitted in 2014?
- No
1. Summary of the impact
Handley's research on sleep's history established the importance of humanities perspectives within debates about today's global sleep crisis. It provided the basis for collaborations with The National Trust (NT), The Children's Sleep Charity, and The British Academy. At NT, the research: (1) delivered approximately GBP255,000 economic benefit; (2) changed the working practices of NT staff and volunteers; (3) increased NT visitor numbers and diversified audiences; (4) changed the visitor engagement strategies of two NT properties to prioritise research-led programming focused on health and wellbeing, with impact on programming for visitors at a third property; and (5) contributed to NT's successful award of Independent Research Organisation status. The research achieved further impact by raising public awareness of the importance of sleep quality to physical and mental health, and improving the sleep routines of school children and members of the public.
2. Underpinning research
The research was undertaken by Handley at The University of Manchester (UoM) from 2012 to the present.
Defining a new field of study
Handley’s monograph Sleep in Early Modern England [1] and related articles represent the first in-depth historical investigations of sleep culture in any period or place. It is the first corpus of work to define the history of sleep as distinct from the history of night-time (Ekirch, 2005; Koslofsky, 2011). The work reveals how distinct bodies of medical knowledge, socio-economic forces, religious cultures, emotions and materials shaped people’s sleeping practices and environments in early modern English households across the life-cycle [1-4]. The research intervenes in debates about the meaning and practice of sleep today by rethinking the balance between environment, culture and biology [5]. This work has defined a new field of historical scholarship, and particularly of social and cultural history, prompting an entirely new entry in the Bibliography of British and Irish History (BBIH) - a key point of reference in the discipline of History. Simon Baker, BBIH editor, noted that “Sleep in Early Modern England [1] *prompted the addition of ‘Sleep’ as an index term.*”
Defining a new interdisciplinary methodology
This boundary-crossing research demanded the design of a new interdisciplinary methodology for investigating sleep’s history, one that combines analysis of sleep’s nonverbal practice alongside its biological drivers, and broader social and cultural meanings. As such, it offers a new model for investigating the history of this vital part of daily life by drawing on insights from medical anthropology, chronobiology, neurobiology, psychopharmacology, phenomenology, sociology, literature and history [1]. The research also draws together an innovative combination of historical archival sources that include: material artifacts (e.g. bedsteads, mattresses, bedding textiles, bed clothes, charms and amulets, lighting devices), household recipe books; probate inventories; life writings and correspondence; and medical treatises [1, 6]. Handley’s analysis of bedding materials and medicaments provided a model for new interpretative strategies at NT properties, and resulted in changes to their physical infrastructure and public displays.
Sleep as Bio-culture
This research establishes an important role for humanities research in contemporary debates about the global sleep crisis by insisting that sleep, in times past and present, is a bio-cultural practice that arises from routine bodily and intellectual interactions between humans and the specific historical and material environments they inhabit [5]. Rather than treating ‘nature’ and ‘culture’ as separate entities, the research establishes the dynamic interactions between them to map how people shaped, sustained and altered their routines and environments to manage sleep opportunities and to optimise their quality. It draws attention, in particular, to the importance of sleep ‘value’ within specific historical contexts, by revealing the powerful motivations that early modern people had to regulate their sleeping practices, which they understood as central to physical, emotional and spiritual health [1].
3. References to the research
Handley, S., Sleep in Early Modern England (Yale University Press, 2016), ISBN: 9780300220391. Available from HEI on request.
Handley, S., ‘Sleep-piety and healthy sleep in early modern English households’, in Conserving health in early modern culture: Bodies and environments in Italy and England, edited by Sandra Cavallo and Tessa Storey (Manchester University Press, 2017), 185-209, ISBN: 978 1526113474, https://doi.org/10.7765/9781526113498.00019
Handley, S., ‘Sociable sleeping in early modern England, 1660-1760’, History: The Journal of the Historical Association 98:329 (2013), 79-104,
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-229X.2012.00577.x
Handley, S., ‘From the sacral to the moral: sleeping practices, household worship and confessional cultures in late seventeenth-century England’, Cultural and Social History 9:1 (2012), 27-46, https://doi.org/10.2752/147800412X13191165982917
Handley, S., 'Accounting for sleep loss in early modern England', Interface Focus (Special Issue: 'Sleep and Stress'), 10:3 (2020), https://doi.org/10.1098/rsfs.2019.0087
Handley, S., ‘Objects, emotions and an early modern bed-sheet’, History Workshop Journal 85:1 (2018), 169-194, https://doi.org/10.1093/hwj/dbx050
Sleep in Early Modern England [1] was nominated for the prestigious Longman-History Today Book Prize and the Wolfson History Prize in 2017. The Wolfson judges described the work as “A book of sheer originality and novelty. Handley tackles an almost completely neglected subject with disarming modesty”. In 2018, the book won the inaugural book prize of the Social History Society, and it has received critical acclaim from international reviewers in the humanities, medicine and science ( London Review of Books; Literary Review; American Historical Review; Economic History Review; Renaissance Quarterly; Medical History; British Society for the History of Medicine; Zeitschrift für Historische Forschung; Nature: International weekly journal of Science). The editors of Cultural and Social History selected [4] as one of the journal’s top five articles since its foundation in 2004 and included it in a virtual special issue in 2016 to celebrate the Social History Society’s 40th anniversary. Further evidence of the quality and importance of this research can be found in the award of a British Academy Mid-Career Fellowship (MD140021 ‘Sleep in Early Modern England’, 2015-2016, PI Handley, GBP83,438); an AHRC Follow-on Funding for Impact and Engagement award (AH/P00850X/1 ‘How we used to sleep’, 2017-2018, PI Handley,GBP80,613), and a Being Human Festival Small Award (‘Sleep: Lost and Found’, 2017, PI Handley, GBP1,601).
4. Details of the impact
Sleep in Early Modern England uncovered a world in which sleeping soundly was understood to be pivotal to physical vigour, emotional wellbeing, prosperity, personal reputation and spiritual health. It documented sleep’s critical importance within Christian beliefs and within a preventative culture of healthcare that was dominated by the principles of the six non-natural things – a set of environmental and dietary rules in which sleeping and waking patterns were central to long-term physical and mental health. Attitudes to sleep in early modern England present an instructive toolkit for the present day by showing that the way people think about sleep, and how they manage it, have a critical effect on sleep quality.
This research shaped current debates about sleep quality and ‘value’ by building an influential partnership with the National Trust (NT) and its audiences. NT is the largest conservation charity in Europe. It cares for more than 500 heritage properties, 780 miles of coastline and approximately 250,000 hectares of land. In 2019/20, NT attracted approximately 28,000,000 visitors and had 5,950,000 members; it generated GBP270,000,000 from members and GBP99,000,000 across its fundraising activities (NT Annual Report 2019/20). Further pathways to impact from this research included the development of educational materials and workshops to engage directly with schools and the delivery of radio and TV broadcasts and podcasts to shape public debate and sleep behaviour.
The research has delivered significant economic benefits and organisational change to the NT, whilst also supporting a range of educational and charitable initiatives to address today’s ‘sleep crisis’ by improving public knowledge of sleep's history, and its importance to physical and mental health. Impact is evidenced in the following key areas:
Impact on the National Trust and its visitors
Handley’s AHRC award brought early modern sleep habits to life as part of a public programming project with NT entitled ‘How we used to sleep’ (HWUTS). It funded a year-long programme of sleep-themed exhibitions, workshops, outreach events, films, blog posts, and staff training exercises in partnership with the NT’s Tudor property, Little Moreton Hall (LMH) in Cheshire. The project shaped programming and interpretation at LMH throughout 2017. As LMH’s General Manager explains, “ all of our 2017 visitors benefited from the HWUTS installations and activities, which dominated all facets of the property’s interpretation in that year” [A.i]. 79,000 visitors to LMH in 2017 enjoyed a ‘Sleep Walk’ adventure trail that exposed visitors to historic bedtime routines, bi-phasic sleep patterns, and sleep remedies documented in the research [A.i]. Research outputs [1-4] and [6] underpinned the programme’s design and produced new training for LMH's staff and volunteers in sleep’s history and early modern healthcare. An increase in visitor numbers at LMH from 76,000 in 2016 to 79,000 in 2017 is attributed to the project: “ We strongly believe that the appeal of HWUTS explains this upturn in visitor numbers” [A.i]. LMH's General Manager also describes the longer-term significance of the project, stating in September 2019 that Handley’s research “ will inform our programming and interpretation activities until at least 2021” [A.i]. The personal connections to the past that HWUTS generated improved visitors’ ‘emotional engagement’ with the property, and increased visitor experience scores across NT’s audience segments. Groups categorised as ‘Young Independents’ and ‘Home and Family’ saw respective increases in levels of visitor satisfaction of 48% to 58% and 35% to 57% from 2016 to 2017 [A.i].
The award of LMH’s first ever North Star Award for Creating Amazing Visitor Experiences is evidence of the project’s success in raising LMH's profile at regional and national level [A.i]. The project led to LMH's reclassification as an ‘experience’ property by NT, as a place where “ people can gain a deeper level of engagement and understanding of history” [A.i]. LMH has also taken a leading role in the AHRC-funded Knowledge Transfer Partnership between UoM and NT. LMH's General Manager stated that “the success of HWUTS” was vital to this leadership role as the project was “ identified as a model of best practice within the KTP cluster for collaborative research and impact work” [A.i]. So far, this partnership has led to three MA and PhD studentships at LMH that will enrich staff and visitor knowledge of LMH's history, support public programming until 2021, and build staff and volunteer capacity by delivering regular research training sessions [A.i]. The total direct economic benefit brought to LMH by Handley’s research (through the AHRC award and value of two collaborative studentships) is approximately GBP255,000 [A.i].
The project’s success changed LMH’s business strategy to prioritise research-led programming for the public with a particular focus on health and wellbeing [A.i]. LMH’s South Chamber is now a permanent sleep-themed interpretation space and the ‘sleep bed’ of soporific plants created by HWUTS has been permanently adopted. The Key Stage 2/GCSE schools’ materials/workshops developed by HWUTS are a permanent resource for LMH’s education team to use. HWUTS helped to diversify LMH's audiences by brokering sustainable new relationships with charities, community organisations, healthcare providers, and the public [A.i]. It also contributed to NT being awarded the status of Independent Research Organisation by the AHRC on behalf of UKRI in 2019 [B].
HWUTS’ success led to Handley’s appointment as historical adviser to NT’s Tudor Merchant’s House in Tenby, delivering staff and volunteer training at the property that was turned into a permanent training resource. The research directly inspired sleep-themed programming at Tudor Merchant’s House throughout 2019, engaging 26,000 visitors [A.ii]. This was extended to the 2020 season following an upturn in visitor numbers of more than 1,000 in 2019 [A.ii]. Through an earlier collaboration, the research also enriched programming at NT's Ham House in Richmond, where Handley co-designed two sleep-themed guided tours for the public in 2013 and 2015/16. The first, ‘Forty Winks: Sleeping Habits through the Ages’ had 75 participants in August 2013 [A.iii]. A second tour exploring the sleeping arrangements of different occupants of the house according to their status was developed in 2015. 144 visitors participated in this tour during the 2015/16 winter season [A.iii]. The second tour helped Ham House to engage visitors at a time when the house had traditionally been closed: “Sasha’s research was enormously helpful in finding new ways to interpret the house that did not rely solely o[n] the visual experience of these show rooms, but focused instead on these rooms as practiced spaces” [A.iii]. The collaboration also produced a factsheet and new room guides for the bedchambers and Handley built staff and volunteer capacity at Ham House by training 30 staff members and producing training materials on sleep’s history for ongoing use.
Impact on The Children’s Sleep Charity (CSC) and The British Academy (BA)
CSC is a national award-winning charity that supports children with sleep issues through accredited training programmes for families, professionals and commercial organisations. The charity's CEO noted that this research “added another dimension” to the charity's efforts to encourage healthy sleep behaviours among under-15s [C]. CSC adopted Handley's educational materials, mentioned in the previous section, to engage school communities with sleep's history for the first time, comparing past and present healthcare strategies. Handley’s Being Human Festival award (School of Advanced Study, University of London/BA/AHRC) funded the collaborative event ‘Sleep: Lost and Found’ with CSC's sleep practitioners at Manchester Museum (2017). Handley partnered with CSC at the BA Summer Showcase (2018) that engaged 1,700 visitors. The BA’s Head of Events noted: “Handley’s exhibit was the joint most popular exhibit as rated by visitors”. Her research installation helped “raise the profile of the British Academy”, “demonstrate the value of the humanities and social sciences” and “engage new and younger audiences” [D]. Both events blended Handley’s research with CSC's sleep expertise to improve public understanding of sleep’s importance for physical and mental health. The CSC CEO stated that the partnership with Handley influenced the award of two prizes: the Foundation for Social Impact Award for ‘Small Charity, Big Achiever’, and the Royal Society for Public Health Award for ‘Children and Young People’. The charity valued UoM’s support for CSC’s ‘Sleep Manifesto’ that aims to effect policy change around children’s sleep issues [C].
Impact on broader publics
Handley’s impact strategy was characterised by two aims that were successfully achieved:
1) Establish the importance of humanities research within debates about sleep culture and healthcare practices.
The following media activities and events fulfilled the first aim: BBC Radio 4’s ‘Start the Week’ (2017); BBC History Magazine, ‘6 sleeping tips and tricks from history’ (2018); BBC History Magazine, ‘The perils of sleeping in early modern England’ (2016); BBC Historyextra podcast, ‘The history of sleep’; article in The Conversation, ‘Onions, embroidery and other historical lessons could help you sleep’ (2017); double-page spread in Canadian daily newspaper The Globe and Mail, ‘A smart night’s sleep’ (2017); blog post for BBC Tomorrow’s World (2017); BBC Ideas film ‘Five things we can learn from the past about sleep’ (2018); British Academy Summer Showcase (2018); project website (blog posts, events, sleep videos, downloadable educational resources, media activities): www.historiesofsleep.com (from 2017); Life Butter Radio podcast (2016); Live Science, ‘How did people wake up before alarm clocks’ (2018). The audience reach for these activities has only been partially captured in some cases, but the total national and international audience reached is nonetheless approximately 11,960,000 [E, F]. These activities opened pathways to new audiences for Handley. They led directly to her ‘Sleep Like a Tudor’ event at Salford's ‘Not Quite Light’ Festival (2019), and to the invitation to lead the Bradford Literature Festival panel 'How to sleep better', sponsored by the NHS (2019). See [E] and [F] for evidence of engagement statistics/comments.
2) Encourage healthier sleep behaviours in the present by drawing on lessons from early modern sleep culture.
The qualitative impact of Handley's research on people’s intentions to improve their sleep habits can be directly documented: Feedback from a sample of 246 visitors to LMH in 2017 evidences the positive impact of Handley’s research on sleep behaviours: 87% of respondents answered ‘Yes’ when asked ‘Has your knowledge of sleep’s history improved after today’s activity?’. When asked ‘Did the activity change your view of how to manage your own sleeping habits?’ 43.5% said ‘Yes’ and 31.7% said ‘Maybe’. When asked ‘Are you likely to alter your sleeping habits after today’s event?’ 39% said ‘Yes’ and 34.6% said ‘Maybe’ [G]. Some respondents stated that they would adopt historic sleep-management techniques by using herbal remedies, adjusting their diets, adopting restful bedtime routines, or by adopting a bi-phasic sleep pattern — the latter was most prevalent among older visitors. A handful of LMH staff even changed their sleep routines as a result of the project [A.i]. Students at Bury Church School to whom Handley delivered a series of sleep history workshops in 2017 as part of their annual ‘Wellbeing Day’ reflected that sessions: “made me reflect on my sleep pattern”; “I learnt about herbs and spices and how they get you to sleep. It also helped me think about my night routine and how to get to sleep better and easier”; “It surprised me that I got 4 hours less sleep than needed”; “I learnt how to get a good night’s sleep”. Full comments at [H]. Students at Park Road School, Sale, have adopted the project's teaching materials and planted their own 'sleep garden' within the grounds [I]. An email from a listener of the Life Butter Radio podcast stated that it “really helped me to understand the importance of sleep. Whereas before I was getting 5/6 hours a night, now I’m getting 7/7.5 hours” [J].
5. Sources to corroborate the impact
- i) Evaluation letter from Acting General Manager, Cheshire and Wirral Portfolio, documenting the impacts of the HWUTS project for Little Moreton Hall (8 September 2019);
ii) Visitor interpretation materials and evaluation letter from Operations Manager, Tudor Merchant’s House (21 May 2020), documenting the impact of the collaboration with Handley;iii) Evaluation letter from Ham House, documenting the impact of the collaboration with Handley (12 April 2016).
National Trust awarded Independent Research Organisation status press release (6 June 2019). Archived at: https://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20200923114138/https://ahrc.ukri.org/newsevents/news/the-national-trust-have-been-awarded-independent-research-organisation-status/
Letter from CEO, Children’s Sleep Charity, describing the impacts of the collaboration with Handley (9 September 2019).
Letter from Head of Events, The British Academy, documenting the impact of Handley’s contribution to the Summer Showcase in 2018 (25 October 2018).
Report detailing media activities and viewer/listener figures.
Analytics from project website www.historiesofsleep.com.
Results from Little Moreton Hall survey (2017).
Comments from Bury Church School students (2017).
Letter from teacher, Park Road Primary School, Sale, documenting the adoption of project materials and creation of a sleep garden (13 May 2019).
Email from podcast listener, documenting changed sleep habits (27 September 2018).
- Submitting institution
- The University of Manchester
- Unit of assessment
- 28 - History
- Summary impact type
- Cultural
- Is this case study continued from a case study submitted in 2014?
- No
1. Summary of the impact
A major ESRC-funded collaboration between Barker and the National Trust at Quarry Bank in Cheshire led to several operational benefits for the Trust and improved visitor engagement and experience. Barker directed a large-scale historical interpretation project that brought to life the experience of residents and workers during the estate’s industrial heyday. Benefits of this collaboration included: visitor numbers rose by 53% between 2015 and 2020; income increased by GBP680,100 between 2015 and 2020; and significant practice change by over 250 staff and volunteers. It led directly to a follow-on AHRC Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) project that delivered these benefits more widely in the Trust. The pilot stage for the KTP between 2018 and 2019 was explicitly linked by the Trust to an increase in annual sales turnover of just over GBP20,000,000 in the North region.
2. Underpinning research
Barker has carried out two major ESRC-funded research projects on the social history of the industrial revolution in England: ‘Women, work and trade in the English Industrial Revolution’ (2000-2001) and ‘Family and business in north-west England, 1760-1820’ (2008-2010). Both projects were centrally concerned with the role of women in promoting economic growth during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the importance of small businesses in economic development, and the dynamics of familial relationships and use of domestic space in the ‘household family’ of those in trade.
The research illustrated how small businesses were at the heart of the economic growth and social transformation that characterised the industrial revolution in Britain. Whilst those engaged in craft-based manufacturing, retailing and allied trades constituted a significant proportion of the urban population, historians have generally overlooked them. Instead, historical analysis of the world of business has focussed on narratives of particularly successful firms, by those involved in new modes of production, and by men. By examining some of the forgotten businesses of the industrial revolution, and the men and women who worked in them, Barker’s work exposed a largely unfamiliar commercial world and provided new insights into the lives of ordinary men and women in trade, whose relatively mundane lives are easily overlooked, but who were central to the story of a pivotal period in British history [1-4]. She also demonstrated that the advent of modern capitalism did not marginalise women in trade, who remained an integral and visible part of urban economies throughout early industrialisation [5].
Barker’s research on trading households examines the buildings they occupied, where the commercial and the domestic continued to co-exist under the same roof throughout the period of the industrial revolution. It explores individual experiences of space by examining personal testimony, and reveals that hierarchies within trading households were often expressed in terms of access to different interior spaces. She demonstrates that gender was a powerful organisational concept amongst those in trade, but generational hierarchies were more important in terms of the control of space. Variations between households were linked both to different understandings of the family, and to the physical constraints of the households concerned. Barker shows that in these small businesses, household settings privacy was not conceived in terms of personal space. Instead, upholding standards of decency meant the gendered and temporal separation of domestic spaces. Ensuring this sort of privacy meant that individuals had to abide by sets of unwritten rules about behaviour and conduct or risk the breakdown of household familial relations [1, 5].
3. References to the research
- Hannah Barker, Family and Business During the Industrial Revolution (Oxford University Press, 2017). ISBN 9780198786023. 256 pp. Open Access.
https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198786023.001.0001
Hannah Barker, ‘A grocer’s tale: class, gender and family in early nineteenth-century Manchester’ Gender and History, 21, 2 (2009), pp. 340-57. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0424.2009.01552.x
Hannah Barker, ‘Soul, purse and family: middling and lower-class masculinity in eighteenth-century Manchester’, Social History, 33, 1 (2008), pp. 12-35.
https://doi.org/10.1080/03071020701833309
Hannah Barker, The Business of Women: Female Enterprise and Urban Development in Northern England, 1760-1830 (Oxford University Press, 2006). ISBN 0199299714. 202 pp. Available from HEI on request.
Hannah Barker, ‘Living above the shop: home, business, and family in the English “Industrial Revolution”’, with Jane Hamlett (PDRA on ESRC project), Journal of Family History, 35 (2010), pp. 311-28. https://doi.org/10.1177/0363199010373544
Key research grants (all Barker sole PI):
2017-2019 GBP155,196 AHRC Knowledge Transfer Partnership Award to work with the National Trust in the north of England.
2016-2017 GBP19,275 ESRC Impact Acceleration Account Award for ‘The Quarry Bank Project’ funding a 0.2 placement for Barker with the National Trust to act as Historical Advisor.
2008-2010 GBP228,296 ES/E023967/1 ESRC grant to fund the project ‘Family and business in north-west England, 1760-1820’.
2003 GBP12,035 from the AHRC Research Leave Scheme to complete Business of Women monograph.
2000-2001 GBP41,994 from the ESRC to fund the research project ‘Women, work and trade in the English industrial revolution’.
Research for Barker’s 2006 OUP monograph, The Business of Women: Female Enterprise and Urban Development in Northern England, 1760-1830 [4], was funded by both the ESRC and AHRC. Reviewers have commented on the importance of her reassessment of the impact of industrialisation on women’s employment, and specifically the degree to which the advent of modern capitalism marginalised female workers. A reviewer in the Economic History Review (2007) asserted ‘The Business of Women puts to rest old arguments about the effects of industrialisation on the economic life of non-elite women. Old dichotomies of continuity or change look too simplistic in the light of Barker’s excellent study’. Barker’s 2017 OUP monograph, Family and Business During the Industrial Revolution [1], was awarded the Social History Society Book Prize in 2019, recognising ‘innovative scholarship in the fields of social and cultural history’ as ‘the best original work of historical research’ published in 2017. The judges commented that ‘the book revises accepted wisdom in various fields … the argument about the vibrancy of small family businesses during the industrial revolution is compelling … The material history of housing is judged as particularly interesting and original’.
4. Details of the impact
The National Trust is the largest membership organisation in the UK, with a turnover in 2020 of GBP613,400,000. Barker’s collaboration with the National Trust began in 2015 at Quarry Bank in Cheshire. It was initiated by the Trust as a result of her research reaching a wide public and professional audience beyond academia, and because the Trust needed specific research expertise. Barker’s research, particularly her work on familial relationships and the use of space in household families in the trading classes during the early industrial revolution, meant she was ideally placed to inform a major reinterpretation of the site. This programme of work developed further through an AHRC Knowledge Transfer Partnership (2017-2019), which linked researchers and National Trust teams across the north of England region. The collaboration has generated a range of benefits for the Trust and its visitors, including: enhanced interpretation and visitor engagement; new learning and capacity building among staff and volunteers, leading to practice change; and increased revenue for a major heritage charity.
Impact at Quarry Bank
Quarry Bank is a site of major historical importance. Built in the late eighteenth century, it incorporates a large cotton mill, a farm, an entire village purpose-built to house the mill workforce and the homes and workplaces of the owner, mill manager and apprentices. The Quarry Bank Project (2015-2019; GBP9,400,000, National Lottery Heritage Fund and donors) comprised major capital work and reinterpretation of the entire site. It was one of the largest projects in the National Trust’s history.
Economic benefits
The project changed the way in which the historical story of Quarry Bank was told, and the reinterpretation of the site – which the Trust described as key to the project’s success [A] – improved visitor engagement and feedback and in turn supported the financial viability of the site through increased visitor numbers, greater ‘dwell time’ and onsite spend, and a rise in repeat visits. Significant visitor growth has been achieved through the project: from 185,000 visitors in 2015 to 283,474 by the start of 2020 – a rise of 53% [A]. The economic impact of this change has been a GBP680,100 (27.9%) increase in property income between 2015 and February 2020, which, in turn, funds future investment in conservation, maintenance and project work. The Quarry Bank Project also produced 12 new permanent jobs at the site, and increased both seasonal employment opportunities and the breadth and depth of volunteering opportunities at Quarry Bank, with 29 new volunteer roles resulting from the project [A].
Interpretation** Barker took a leading role in the Quarry Bank Project’s Interpretation Design Team, which had responsibility for directing the reinterpretation of the entire site, including those buildings and places that had not formerly been open to the public, such as the Styal Village Hub and 13 Oak Cottages (a former worker’s cottage). Drawing on her research on the lives of those in trade during the early industrial revolution — the period of Quarry Bank’s heyday — she produced the main storylines for the new interpretation and wrote detailed new guidance underpinning the interpretation for use by National Trust staff and volunteers. The key characteristics of the new interpretation are the use of a social historical approach to telling the stories of former inhabitants at Quarry Bank that built directly on the individuals, families and analysis contained within Barker’s published research on northern towns during the early industrial revolution. Thus new storylines focus on the nature of household familial relationships, including hierarchies of age and gender, on the use of domestic and working spaces, and on the very different ideas of privacy and decency during the late Georgian period and how they affected the way in which people lived and viewed the world [1-5]. This transformed the narrative for visitors at a Trust site that had previously focused almost entirely on the previous owners of the mill, and on the production of cotton and the working lives of the cotton workers. As the former Quarry Bank General Manager has noted, Barker’s involvement has been ‘ absolutely crucial to our interpretation strategy which is key to the success of the whole project’ [A].
The research has also informed the National Trust’s programming. An exhibition on women’s work at Quarry Bank in 2017, titled ‘A woman’s work is never done’, was directly based upon Barker’s 2006 monograph on women traders during the early industrial revolution and would not have been possible without this research which explored women traders and their relationships with the estate [4].
Visitor engagement
The new interpretation has enhanced learning and emotional engagement among visitors to Quarry Bank. Barker’s interpretation at Styal Village Hub and 13 Oak Cottages (a former worker’s cottage which was not open to the public before 2016) has been especially powerful. Visitors learn much more about the lived experience of former inhabitants, and particularly about past meanings of home and family, and different understandings of privacy and decency during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries [B]. A survey of 153 visitors in 2019 found that 98% had learned something new from their visit, with the majority of visitors interested in learning about living conditions as re-imagined with Barker’s research insights [B, C]. Visitor feedback shows that these new learning opportunities have also strengthened the emotional engagement that visitors feel with past Quarry Bank workers, making for a more meaningful experience. Over half of those surveyed expressed fascination and curiosity on visiting, while other powerful emotional responses, such as pity, sadness and anger were also described by many visitors. The Trust states that this enhanced emotional engagement has helped it meet its aims to improve visitor satisfaction, lengthen dwell time and encourage membership loyalty [A]. ‘Visitor enjoyment’ scores have also risen significantly during the period of the Quarry Bank Project.
Staff/volunteer learning and practice
The new interpretation and associated training and documentation have impacted upon the experiences, learning and practice of approximately 250 staff and volunteers since 2017 and have also brought about a practice change in the way the Quarry Bank National Trust site engages with historical research [A]. Barker led staff and volunteer training in 6 half-day workshops between 2017 and 2019, which covered the historical underpinning for the new interpretation, including not just a summary of findings and analysis but also allowing attendees to study for themselves many of the primary sources used [D]. Staff and volunteers were engaged in the historical process and found this to be valuable for their understanding of interpretive decisions across the site. They were also empowered and enthused to share their new knowledge and tools for challenging history with visitors [D]. 96% of participants surveyed in 2019 reported that they either ‘learned a lot’ or ‘quite a bit’ from this training, with 70% of participants having ‘learned a lot’ [D]. These activities met the National Trust’s objective of ‘giving front-facing Trust representatives the awareness of historical critical thinking, of emerging ideas, of alternative interpretations and of how to extract these from academic work and convey this to the public’ [B]. In 2018, staff and volunteer experiences of engagement with the research and the new interpretation were evaluated through in-depth interviews with 7 staff members and 8 volunteers. These interviews revealed the way in which engagement with the research had opened up new ways of understanding the site and enhanced interactions with visitors. One volunteer described ‘constantly reading the [research] documents. It’s surprising how often you can read through the same document and pick up bits, as your knowledge grows, other things make more sense and you can put the story together yourself better when you’re talking to people’ [B]. A volunteer surveyed in 2019 also commented on the learning opportunities offered by the training: ‘ It has been extremely useful and great to have such an open and frank exchange of information. It has inspired me to find out more and shone a new light on what I previously knew - education - coloured clothes - living conditions’, whilst another wrote of the new knowledge that underpinned some of the changes in the way the site was presented to the public as a result of Barker’s input: ‘I enjoyed learning about the latest research on clothing/room wage/living arrangements and in particular how this is going to affect our interpretation going forward. I also appreciated looking at the inventories to consider the furniture and daily lives of these people for ourselves. I'll no longer look at the red cloaks in the girls dormitory and think they look wrong’ [D]. In a film made in 2019 to document the research-based collaboration, a Trust staff member commented: ‘We have so many people coming here [to Styal] who want to talk, and the research […] give[s] us the platform to talk’ [E]. Another staff member reflected on the importance of the research contribution, commenting that it had been ‘great to have that level of academic support to our role’ and that Barker’s research documents were the ‘foundation of the stories that we would tell’ about the site [E]. A third talked about how the training had opened up the emotional experiences of people who had lived in Styal, allowing him to draw on those experiences when leading tours of the cottage [E]. Staff and volunteers had changed their views about research collaboration ( ‘It’s given me a passion for discovery and working in partnership with experts’), had been inspired to work differently, and even conduct their own research [B, C]. In 2019 40% of participants in Barker’s training said they were inspired to do their own research as a result of attending a session [D]. In addition, there were rises in measurable ‘staff satisfaction’ and ‘volunteer recommendation’ scores directly linked to the outcomes of the Quarry Bank Project programme of (re)interpretation [A]. Underhill writes that the project has ‘served to motivate and inspire staff and volunteers: staff satisfaction and volunteer recommendation scores (both 71%) at the close of the project (2018 survey) were high compared to the National Trust average’ [A].
Impact on the National Trust in the north region through an AHRC KTP
The transformational importance of the Quarry Bank project for the Trust, and Barker’s key role in changing practice there, is further demonstrated by a subsequent AHRC Knowledge Transfer Partnership award (2017-2019) led by Barker. The KTP addressed the National Trust’s lack of research capability; promoted the potential of academic researchers to enhance the Trust’s interpretation practice and Experiences programme; established models of best practice for collaboration between academics and Trust properties which draw heavily on the Quarry Bank project; and created structured long-term partnerships between the Trust and Universities. Pilots for these new models of working were run in 5 other Trust sites (Lyme, Speke Hall, Dunham Massey, Sizergh and Nostell Priory), and a wider informal research network of other Trust sites was created to promote collaborative working which involved 203 academics at 23 universities and led directly to the formation of 6 collaborative PhD studentships, 12 Masters or PhD student placements and linked to the development of 7 major AHRC-funded projects.
The KTP created new toolkits to better facilitate engagement in the future that will be rolled out nationally during 2021-2022 [F, G, H]. In addition, 2 new academic engagement posts at the Trust were created, with 9 more planned nationally. The Trust identified the KTP activities, in addition to the collaboration at Quarry Bank, as directly contributing to its successful bid for Independent Research Organisation status in 2019, with the new collaborative research projects coordinated by the KTP valued at approximately GBP1,400,000. The Trust explicitly linked the pilots to an increase in annual sales turnover in the North region of just over GBP20,000,000 and to an increase in annual profits of GBP89,000 between 2018 and 2019, due to an increase in visitor numbers of 20,073 and increases in dwell time, secondary spend in catering and retail, plus increased membership sales of GBP61,080 ‘ that come from a deeper, more enjoyable experiences, and increased feeling of relevance and emotional engagement’ [G]. Innovate UK, which oversees KTP projects on behalf of UKRI, judged the completed KTP as ‘Outstanding’.
5. Sources to corroborate the impact
Letter from former General Manager, Quarry Bank, now Assistant Director of Operations, National Trust (6 October 2020). Documenting Barker’s contributions to the Quarry Bank Project, the impact of these contributions and the outcomes and significance of the project for the Trust and its visitors.
National Trust evaluation report: Styal Village Hub and Cottage Evaluation, Anna Fielding, 2018.
National Trust evaluation report: Styal Village Hub and Cottage Evaluation, Our Stories Heritage Consultancy, 2019.
National Trust evaluation report: Evaluation of Staff and Volunteer Sessions, Our Stories Heritage Consultancy, 2020 .
Film: Family Life During the Industrial Revolution: An academic research collaboration with the National Trust at Styal, National Trust site:
Knowledge Transfer Partnership toolkits for academics wanting to work with the National Trust and for Trust staff wanting to work with academics:
https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/features/work-with-us-guidance-for-academics
Knowledge Transfer Partnership Final Company Partner Report, 2019.
University of Manchester film documenting the KTP and its impact on Quarry Bank and the National Trust: