Research
Warwick-based researchers are engaged in a range of projects which involve oral history, interviewing, life stories etc.
The OHN also provides assistance to oral history projects in the local community. This comes in the form of guidance with aspects of oral history practice such as ethics and interview technique, and the recruiting of student volunteers where appropriate.
You can explore some of these projects through the links below.
If you would like your project to be featured, or if you would like to chat about the assistance we can offer you, please email oralhistorynetwork@warwick.ac.uk
Recent oral history publications by our members
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Raymond Hyma et al., 'The power in re-telling research: A Cambodian community-based approach generating knowledge by subjects of study’, Development in Practice (2025), 1–13. doi:10.1080/09614524.2025.2463913.
- Pierre Botcherby, 'Coal and community: an oral history of Binley colliery', Oral History, 52:4 (2024), 121-132. Read a pre-publication version of the manuscript here.
- Joseph Price, 'The HIV/AIDS epidemic and the University of Warwick, 1987-1994', Midland History, 49:2 (2024), 225-243.
- Susannah Wilson, Now We Are Forty: Conversations with Women, (Seraphine Press, 2023)
Want your research here?
Send us an overview of your project to oralhistorynetwork@warwick.ac.uk
But I've already got a webpage...
Don't worry! Just send us the link and we can connect our members to your page that way instead.
The making of a 'psychedelic renaissance' in Britain
Himesh Mehta, PhD Candidate, History
My PhD thesis explores the twenty-first century 'renaissance' of neuroscientific, psychotherapeutic, and cultural interests in psychedelic drugs, with a focus on Britain. It explores how the eclectic community that makes up the psychedelic movement is caught up in a maelstrom of macro-structural and historical forces surrounding the growing influence of neuroscience and neoliberalism [...]
Memories of Binley Colliery
Warwickshire Wildlife Trust/Dunsmore Living Landscape & Warwick Oral History Network
"As part of their National Lottery Heritage Funded project, the team at the Dunsmore Living Landscape are undertaking oral history interviews with local residents to collect memories of the Binley Colliery. The colliery formerly occupied the site on which the Claybrookes Marsh nature reserve is now found [...]"
Life stories of Cuban healthcare professionals
Prof. Stephanie Panichelli-Batalla, Global Sustainable Development
"[My] research delves into the personal narratives of Cuban internationalist healthcare professionals, examining how their experiences on medical missions have influenced their identities and life trajectories [...]"
The making of sexual health at university
Joseph Price, PhD Candidate, History
"This project investigates discourses and experiences of sexual health at English universities in the post-war period. It explores how universities and their students shaped the concept of sexual health and responded to changing sexual cultures and sexual politics across the twentieth and into the twenty-first century. [...]"
Now We Are Forty: Conversations with Women
Dr. Susannah Wilson, School of Modern Languages and Cultures
"'Forty is a watershed moment for many women, prompting a new set of life questions.' I [have] published a new oral history of British women born in the late 1970s with a focus on moving from youth to middle age [...] they reflect on their mothers' experiences, their childhoods, our schooling, and adult life since leaving school."
Chamba Rumal embroidered textiles
Smriti Dutt, PhD Candidate, History
"My doctoral research focuses on the Chamba Rumal, an exquisite form of embroidered textile art from Himachal Pradesh. [...] My study explores how the Chamba Rumal embodies narratives of community, heritage, and cultural memory. I examine its role within local traditions, its transmission across generations, and its contemporary revival."
Working Class Attitudes Towards Feminism and Labour: Coventry Women's Experiences of Paid Work 1970-1985
Skye Shepherd, MA student, History
"This project explores how women in Coventry related to feminist concepts of work, including ideas surrounding what constituted “women’s work”, workplace organisation, and equal pay [...]"

Race and riots in Thatcher's Britain
Dr. Simon Peplow, History
"Throughout my work, I undertake oral history interviews regarding the experiences and political activities/tactics of black communities in Britain. For instance, while the 1980s anti-police disturbances have been discussed and written about in some detail, such accounts have often overlooked the voices of those actually involved in various capacities [...]"
Orgreave - The Service Speaks
Dr. Emily Gray, Sociology
"A two-year, AHRC-funded investigation that places the rank-and-file police officers deployed at the so-called “Battle of Orgreave” (18 June 1984) at the centre of the historical record. Four decades of scholarship and public memory have rightly focused on the miners and their communities, but we have little experiential data of those who policed the dispute on the day [...]"
Drugs and (dis)order: building sustainable peacetime economies in the aftermath of war
Professor Mandy Sadan, Global Sustainable Development
"This is a large, multi-partner project led by Professor Jonathan Goodhand (SOAS University of London). It aims to improve understanding of how illicit drug economies are implicated in peacebuilding and development in three of the most significant drug-producing countries in the world: Colombia, Afghanistan and Myanmar."
Participatory and action-oriented research for peace: producing insider knowledge whilst transforming conflict through inquiry
Raymond Hyma, PhD Candidate, Politics & International Studies
"This project examines how Facilitative Listening Design (FLD), a local inquiry and storytelling method developed in Cambodia, can reshape power dynamics, foster personal and group transformation, and influence knowledge production through the research process [...]"
Then & Now: Arts at Warwick
Dr. Pierre Botcherby, School of Modern Languages and Cultures
Kathryn Woods, Pro-Vice Provost, Education, UCL
"Through reflecting on the past of Arts at the University of Warwick, the project aims to inspire thinking about its future; especially as the Faculty prepares to move into the new Faculty of Arts Building in 2021. It also aims to create a sense of learning community across the Arts disciplines [...]"

NGOs and migrants in North Central America
Dr. Erika Herrera Rosales, Sociology
"Drawing from semi-structured interviews with staff members and migrants and several NGOs’ documents, her research inquires into the roles and practices of humanitarian actors as well as those who are aided in the context of ‘coloniality’ [...]"
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