James Wallis
James works in the Commemorations Team at the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. He is also an Associate for Imperial War Museums' (IWM) Institute for the Public Understanding of War and Conflict.
Between 2017 to 2021, James acted as Research Fellow in the History Department at the University of Essex for the AHRC-funded ‘Reflections on the Centenary of the First World War: Learning and Legacies for the Future’ project (PI: Professor Lucy Noakes, Co-Is: Professor Catriona Pennell, Dr Emma Hanna, Professor Lorna Hughes). From 2019 to 2021, he additionally worked as a freelance researcher - writing reports and working for organisations including IWM, Historic Royal Palaces and Cumberland Lodge. James completed his Collaborative Doctoral Award, which partnered Exeter University and IWM, in 2015.
James’ interdisciplinary research interests cover conflict heritage, difficult histories and commemorative practice within various historical settings. He has previously written about the relationship between the practice of family history and the First World War, and in 2017 co-edited a volume with Professor David Harvey (Aarhus University) examining First World War historical geographies.
Between 2017 to 2021, James acted as Research Fellow in the History Department at the University of Essex for the AHRC-funded ‘Reflections on the Centenary of the First World War: Learning and Legacies for the Future’ project (PI: Professor Lucy Noakes, Co-Is: Professor Catriona Pennell, Dr Emma Hanna, Professor Lorna Hughes). From 2019 to 2021, he additionally worked as a freelance researcher - writing reports and working for organisations including IWM, Historic Royal Palaces and Cumberland Lodge. James completed his Collaborative Doctoral Award, which partnered Exeter University and IWM, in 2015.
James’ interdisciplinary research interests cover conflict heritage, difficult histories and commemorative practice within various historical settings. He has previously written about the relationship between the practice of family history and the First World War, and in 2017 co-edited a volume with Professor David Harvey (Aarhus University) examining First World War historical geographies.
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Book Reviews by James Wallis
Elizabeth Edwards, The Camera as Historian – Amateur Photographers and Historical
Imagination, 1885-1918, London & Durham: Duke University Press, 2012
Books by James Wallis
This book explores the War’s impact in more unexpected theatres, blurring the boundary between home and fighting fronts, investigating the experiences of the war amongst civilians and often overlooked combatants. It also critically examines the politics of hindsight in the post-war period, and offers an historical geographical account of how the First World War has been memorialised within ‘official’ spaces, in addition to those overlooked and often undervalued ‘alternative spaces’ of commemoration.
This innovative and timely text will be key reading for students and scholars of the First World War, and more broadly in historical and cultural geography, social and cultural history, European history, Heritage Studies, military history and memory studies.
Papers by James Wallis
This report overviews the event’s four interconnected sessions, as well as outlining some main findings and recommendations for future evaluation practice. Observations on methods, issues and outcomes were collectively put forward by workshop participants, based on their first-hand experiences. Content should therefore be of interest to academics, heritage practitioners, and community group stakeholders.
The workshop was held as a result of the AHRC-funded research project 'Lest We Forget: Poppies and Public Commemoration' (led by Dr Megan Gooch) at the Independent Research Organisation (IRO) and heritage organisation Historic Royal Palaces (HRP). The research team faced challenges around research practice within a heritage institution and wanted to explore these issues with peers from other IROs and colleagues in commercial and academic sectors to find a way to discuss the strengths and limitations of audience research within heritage sites, and hopefully pave the way for future research projects and collaborations.
Three themes were highlighted and explored
• Audience (data) • Politics and Anxieties • Capacity and Solutions
In Part II of the report, we present practical recommendations for addressing 'difficult histories' at a local and national level, in ways that allow for the development of positive identities and feelings of belonging.
We live in an era of significant engagement with the past. Amidst ongoing globalisation, digitalisation and postmodern anxieties about a seemingly uncertain future, there has been a collective turn to former times, in a bid to help shape our world. The very act of remembering the past remains central to our sense of identity – at the individual, community and national level.
With the internet providing unprecedented access to historical resources, and technology advancing the ways in which mass data can be utilised, the past is, in effect, a ‘commodity’ of the Information Age.
New cultures of memory have been ushered in, as ways of combating a perceived sense of rootlessness in contemporary society. This has been achieved through initiatives such as oral history movements, new museum and memorial projects, and political movements to right past wrongs. These forms of commemoration can reveal who or what is forgotten, as much as they seek to promote remembrance.
For Britain, this is a pertinent issue. Though many Britons tend to shy away from engaging with their country’s complex legacies of conflict and imperialism, a contemporary postcolonial and (more) multicultural setting has delivered the contextual backdrop for initiating such conversations amongst those working in schools, public life or museums.
Contents:
1. Rethinking identity and difficult histories
2. Does history matter?
3. History and identity formation in schools
4. Contesting history in public spaces
5. Managing the past
6. Museums and ‘difficult histories’
7. Peace, reconciliation and positive identity
Elizabeth Edwards, The Camera as Historian – Amateur Photographers and Historical
Imagination, 1885-1918, London & Durham: Duke University Press, 2012
This book explores the War’s impact in more unexpected theatres, blurring the boundary between home and fighting fronts, investigating the experiences of the war amongst civilians and often overlooked combatants. It also critically examines the politics of hindsight in the post-war period, and offers an historical geographical account of how the First World War has been memorialised within ‘official’ spaces, in addition to those overlooked and often undervalued ‘alternative spaces’ of commemoration.
This innovative and timely text will be key reading for students and scholars of the First World War, and more broadly in historical and cultural geography, social and cultural history, European history, Heritage Studies, military history and memory studies.
This report overviews the event’s four interconnected sessions, as well as outlining some main findings and recommendations for future evaluation practice. Observations on methods, issues and outcomes were collectively put forward by workshop participants, based on their first-hand experiences. Content should therefore be of interest to academics, heritage practitioners, and community group stakeholders.
The workshop was held as a result of the AHRC-funded research project 'Lest We Forget: Poppies and Public Commemoration' (led by Dr Megan Gooch) at the Independent Research Organisation (IRO) and heritage organisation Historic Royal Palaces (HRP). The research team faced challenges around research practice within a heritage institution and wanted to explore these issues with peers from other IROs and colleagues in commercial and academic sectors to find a way to discuss the strengths and limitations of audience research within heritage sites, and hopefully pave the way for future research projects and collaborations.
Three themes were highlighted and explored
• Audience (data) • Politics and Anxieties • Capacity and Solutions
In Part II of the report, we present practical recommendations for addressing 'difficult histories' at a local and national level, in ways that allow for the development of positive identities and feelings of belonging.
We live in an era of significant engagement with the past. Amidst ongoing globalisation, digitalisation and postmodern anxieties about a seemingly uncertain future, there has been a collective turn to former times, in a bid to help shape our world. The very act of remembering the past remains central to our sense of identity – at the individual, community and national level.
With the internet providing unprecedented access to historical resources, and technology advancing the ways in which mass data can be utilised, the past is, in effect, a ‘commodity’ of the Information Age.
New cultures of memory have been ushered in, as ways of combating a perceived sense of rootlessness in contemporary society. This has been achieved through initiatives such as oral history movements, new museum and memorial projects, and political movements to right past wrongs. These forms of commemoration can reveal who or what is forgotten, as much as they seek to promote remembrance.
For Britain, this is a pertinent issue. Though many Britons tend to shy away from engaging with their country’s complex legacies of conflict and imperialism, a contemporary postcolonial and (more) multicultural setting has delivered the contextual backdrop for initiating such conversations amongst those working in schools, public life or museums.
Contents:
1. Rethinking identity and difficult histories
2. Does history matter?
3. History and identity formation in schools
4. Contesting history in public spaces
5. Managing the past
6. Museums and ‘difficult histories’
7. Peace, reconciliation and positive identity