Meet Our Networkers in Scotland

Regional Adviser Scotland

Alison Chand

I’m a regional adviser for Scotland for the OHS and a BL/OHS accredited oral history trainer. In addition, I deliver training for the Scottish Oral History Centre at the University of Strathclyde, where I am a research associate and teach on various undergraduate and postgraduate history modules, including the ‘Oral History Theory and Practice’ and ‘Work and Community Placement in Oral History’ modules. I am also a part-time lecturer with the Centre for History at the University of the Highlands and Islands and undertake freelance work as an oral historian, proofreader and copy-editor. I actively undertake oral history research, and am currently working on a BA/Leverhulme-funded project entitled ‘Rainbows in the Windows: An Oral History of Young Families in Britain in the COVID-19 Pandemic’. Please do get in touch if you are in Scotland and would like any advice on oral history.

Regional Adviser Scotland

Yvonne McFadden

I am a Research and Teaching Associate at the University of Strathclyde. Currently, I am Co-Director of the Scottish Oral History Centre. My research interest focus on the social and cultural history of twentieth century housing and gender in post-war Scotland. My work examines the impact of gender, consumerism and class on social relations and wellbeing. I am currently working on a monograph of my thesis research under contract with Edinburgh University Press. I am experienced in oral history, material cultures, visual sources and heritage sector. Since finishing my PhD thesis at the University of Glasgow in 2016, I have worked on heritage projects with Scottish Women’s Aid, National Autistic Society and Glasgow Women’s Library. In 2017, I published a short story as part of collection, Voices from the Belvidere, based on my research into a female surgeon at the Belvidere Fever Hospital, Glasgow in 1918. I have also taught at University of Glasgow and Glasgow Caledonian University on Scottish History and Health History.

I am currently working as a Reserach Associate with Prof Arthur McIvor on a oral history project collecting stories from the Lost Villages of East Ayrshire.

I am currently the Convenor of Women’s History Scotland and manage their social media. I am also a member of the Scottish Oral History Centre here at Strathclyde.

Regional Adviser, N. Yorkshire & Scotland

Mhairi-Jean Ross

I am a researcher in Urban Studies at the University of Glasgow. I currently work on the Changing Realities participatory research project, which documents the lives of low-income families in the UK. My PhD examined the life-course experiences of older lone mothers in Easterhouse, Glasgow, and the significance of female networks of solidarity for getting by challenges of gender, place, poverty, and lone motherhood. I am a working-class academic with roots in several deprived Scottish neighbourhoods. My research interests include the intersections of class and gender, as well as the practice of transformational pedagogy. My twenty-year experience as a community education worker within deprived Scottish neighbourhoods informs my academic and lived experience of shifting realities of working-class lives. I have extensive experience in conducting oral history research in community settings. My projects to date have included developing techniques for mapping working-class lives, documenting the experiences of people leaving long-term psychiatric care, charting the process of the Carbeth Hutter’s community land buyout, and exploring lone motherhood in Easterhouse, Glasgow, since the 1980s.