Next up is 2023 BAIS Bursary Prize winner, Sarah Mason (University of Edinburgh). As an oral history investigation, Sarah used her bursary to support the interview stage of her doctoral project:

In 2023 I was awarded a BAIS Postgraduate Bursary to aid in the development of my doctoral project. I am presently conducting an oral history investigation into women’s networks and community nostalgia within West Belfast, 1975-1995. Throughout the course of this present academic year my activities have been centred on the interview process, outreach within my respective communities of study and subsequent transcription. I have developed key relationships with critical community-facing organisations in West Belfast, a small selection are as follows: Falls Community Council, Women’s Resource Development Agency, Shankill Greater Partnership, Shankill Women’s Centre and the Windsor Women’s Centre. By virtue of this consistent form of community engagement and outreach my research has been able to organically prosper.

Oral history is a methodology that requires a reassessment of how one conducts historical research; oral history is founded upon human interactions, interpersonal connections and trust. Of course, this triad is invariably time consuming and forces the researcher to factor in processes of recruitment and outreach. However, I have found great success in cultivating relationships in West Belfast through persistent interest, sensitive enquiries and critically a robust ethical framework. I envisage that over the course of this academic year, I will have conducted the majority of my oral history interests and will subsequently be able to translate this work into my written thesis. The main activities sponsored by BAIS, has been my consistent visits to Belfast for both interview outreach and archival visits.

Over the past three months, I have conducted education sessions with the Women’s Resource Development Agency and the Shankill Women’s Centre. These sessions have focused on the legacy of the conflict on a community level, and have sought to ensure that current service users are aware of facilities and services that can help them in regards to trauma and victimisation. My work alongside the community sector, especially within women-only services, has had a great impact on the direction of my research and has proffered new avenues of analysis. Equally, developing relationships with key community stakeholders has widening my network of contacts across Belfast city.

Sarah Mason is a PhD student in History at the University of Edinburgh. Her doctoral project focuses on the quotidian realities of women across West Belfast, 1970-1985. It examines the importance of communal networks within the context of the mounting violence of the Northern Irish conflict. This project utilises oral history interviewing to examine the relationship between the socio-spatial segregation of West Belfast and women’s domestic experiences.

*Image of women breaking the 1970 Falls Curfew courtesy of the Irish News