Recruitment begins for the second edition of the educational project In Between? Searching for local histories in borderlands of Europe
The European Network Remembrance and Solidarity launches the recruitment process for the second edition of the project called In Between? Searching for local histories in borderlands of Europe whose target group is young people aged 18-25. This time around, young Europeans are going to travel to the region on the Austrian-Slovenian border near Graz; Czech Switzerland where the Czech Republic, Germany and Poland meet; the basin of the Danube and Drava rivers on the Hungarian-Croatian border; as well as Transcarpathia, a borderland of Slovakia, Ukraine and Hungary.
The project In Between? Searching for local histories in borderlands of Europe aims at encouraging a young generation of Europeans to explore 20th-century history through talking to those who have lived it. The participant recruitment process closes on 10 July 2016.
Following the project formula, groups of few young people each will go to four European multicultural border regions in order to meet local residents and help them systematise family archives and record their memories.
Before the start of the study visits (16-22.09), the project participants will take part in workshops (12-15.09) delivered by experts in most recent history, oral history, cultural anthropology and archival studies. The young people are going to learn the craft of testimony collection, interviewing and digitisation of tokens of remembrance and documents as well as the specific features and history of the regions they visit. Then they will be divided into groups of five to go to border towns and other localities for seven days.
Searching for local personal stories which are part of the multicultural landscape of the selected regions, the young persons will become familiar in practice with tools and methods for exploring and documenting the past. The memories, sound and video recordings, photographs, letters as well as scanned documents and other pieces testifying to the daily life of the communities will constitute a basis for building accounts of their travels.
The project will offer the participants an opportunity to not just develop their competences in terms of historical and ethnographic field studies but also to improve their knowledge of the historical processes in 20th-century Europe. Recorded on family photographs and in stories, the documentary material they collect which reflects the past of the four European regions - with their cultural and historical complexities - will become the theme of a project closing conference. The event to be held in Warsaw in December 2016 will feature debates with cultural anthropologists, historians and oral history researchers.
The organisers are looking for twenty young people, both university students and freelancers aged 18-25, wishing to have a try at examining human memory of most recent history.
To participate in the project, complete the recruitment form available at www.enrs.eu/inbetween before 10 July 2016. The factors to be considered include the candidates' motivation to participate in the project, their openness and readiness to cooperate. Knowledge of English and one of the languages used in the selected region is a must.