Nancy Rushohora – a senior postdoctoral fellow in Studies in Historical Trauma and Transformation has received a grant to collaborate in a global cross-disciplinary project that seeks to contribute to preventing conflict and building sustainable peace, reducing barriers to capacity sharing and advocating culture to be recognized as a human need. This is a network plus 4 years funding which has been awarded £ 2 million by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) as part of the Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF). The project will be conducted through a network of expertise from Tanzania, South Africa, Ghana, United Kingdom and Lebanon.

Prof. Elena Isayev from the University of Exeter who will lead the project said “we want to expose the power of which comes with being part of deciding what pasts remain into the future. Not to create one single right story but to understand the value in recognizing and respecting multiple narratives even ones that may contradict each other”.

Nancy writes: we intend to valorise multiple voices of individuals, families, groups, government and private archives. In the 19th century, the Benedictine missionaries established their archives in Tanzania to document the history of the people and custodians of the land that was offered to them. These archives have remained closed and the people of Tanzania have not had access to them. This project will create a bridge for these missionary archives to be opened to the public. Together with the archives are the landscape, monuments and people who experienced trauma that was concealed and unacknowledged. With this project and among other things, Nancy intends to produce a documentary film about sites of memory and landscape of trauma (http://trauma-memory-arts.org.za/home-version-2/sites-of-memory/) as a listening tool for stories that have never been heard before and to contribute remedying the trauma induced by colonialism.

Along with Nancy Rushohora (Stellenbosch University) and Elena Isayev (University of Exeter), other co-investigators are Kodzo Gavua (University of Ghana), Valence Silayo (Tumaini University Dar es Salam College), Peter Campbell (British School at Rome), Elena Fiddian Qasmiyeh (University College London), Yousif Qasmiyeh (Oxford University), Ceri Ashley (British Museum), Howayda Al-Harithy (American University of Beirut) and Mick Finch (Central Saint Martins-UAL).