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Susan Bishop

Archaeology, University of Leicester

Thesis title:

Mixed Race Relationships in Post-war Leicester: multiculturalism and the emotional complexities of female agency

Research Area

  • Archaeology

Publications

December 2021 - 'Inner-city possibilities: using place and space to facilitate inter-ethnic dating and romance in 1960s-1980s Leicester', Urban History, open access online 8.12.2021 - see

<https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/urban-history/article/innercity-possibilities-using-place-and-space-to-facilitate-interethnic-dating-and-romance-in-1960s1980s-leicester/B39CC893A5FF981F9A78C64E189FC75A>

June 2020 - Book Review of Brown Babies by Lucy Bland for Local Population Studies

Winter 2018 - Book review of Mixing It by Wendy Webster for the Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History

July 2018, British Library's 'Sound and Vision' Blog, 'Dangerous Oral Histories: Risks, Responsibilities and Rewards'







Conferences

2021 'What's Love got to do with it?' Locating female agency and new cultural identities in Leicester, 1960-1991 at the Women's History Network annual conference (online)

2020 - 'Uncovering Daily Lives through Oral Histories: Romance and Racism in later twentieth century Leicester'. Online presentations to the New History Lab at University of Leicester and as part of the research relay at the Midlands Four Cities 2020 Digital Research Festival

2019 - 'Should I love him, or should I love him not?' The emotional turmoil of inter-cultural dating' at the second biennial conference, entitled 'Emotions in Conflict', of the Society for the History of Emotions (SHE)

2019 - 'Oral History and the emotional socialisation of young women in Britain during the second half of the twentieth century' as part of the Research Relay at the Midlands Four Cities 2019 Research Festival

2019 – Invited to present, 'Redefining the Domestic Politics of British 'Blackness'? 'Mixed' Black Caribbean and white British romantic relationships in postwar Leicester', at the What's Happening in Black British History? conference organised by the University of Leicester in partnership with Institute of Commonwealth Studies

2019 – ''Inner city' space: a useful lens through which to study the history of inter-ethnic romance?' at the Community, Culture, Crisis: The Inner City in Post-war Britain conference, at the Centre for Urban History, University of Leicester, and the University of Leicester, History, Politics and International Relations' Third Annual Postgraduate Researchers' Conference

2018 - 'Emotional Danger: Risk and Reward in a Study of mixed relationships in Leicester between 1960 and 1985' at the Dangerous Oral Histories: Risk, Responsibilities and Rewards Conference of the Oral History Society (OHS) and the Oral History Network of Ireland (OHNI)

2018 - Examining toleration of inter-ethnic romance in post-imperial Britain, 1960-1985' at the Birkbeck History Research Students' Forum conference, 'Testing Toleration in Britain's Imperial and Post-imperial World'

2018 - 'How might emotions inform an evaluation of historical change in attitudes to romantic mixing in post-war Leicester, 1948-1985?' as part of the Research Relay at The Midlands Three Cities 2018 Research Festival

2018 - Member of the four-person committee that organised the University of Leicester's School of History, Politics and International Relations Postgraduate Researchers' second Annual Conference

2017 - 'Get Up, Stand Up….'? Women in mixed Black Caribbean and White British relationships in Leicester between 1948 and 1979, at the University of Leicester's History, Politics and International Relations Department's 2017 Postgraduate Researchers Conference 


Public Engagement & Impact

2018/2019 - Media promotion of project and collection of oral histories collected from 21 women who had long-term, heterosexual inter-cultural romantic relationships in Leicester at some time between the late 1950s and 1991

2018/2019 – Leicester Universities Volunteer Coordinator for RAF Stories, a collaborative project with RAF museum collecting memories of 100 years of the RAF

2016/2017 - Media promotion of projects and collection of oral histories collected from 12 women who had experiences of long-term Black Caribbean and white British romantic relationships in Leicester between 1960 and 1985 and 16 people with memories of German Prisoners of War who were held in camps across Leicestershire between 1944-1948

2016/17 - Initial public engagement and archival research to scope feasibility of project looking at local public opposition to the construction of the Ratcliffe-on-Soar Power Generating Station in Nottinghamshire during the early 1960s (employed by Unitemps)

2015 - Managed team of volunteers to produce a podcast telling a history of Shady Lane Arboretum, part of the History of Leicester's Parks project (employed by Unitemps)


Memberships

Member of The Oral History Society

Member of The Social History Society

Member of The Women's History Network

Member of The Society for the History of Emotions