Alison Chand
In my capacity as OHS Regional Adviser for Scotland, I have dealt with a number of queries this year, relating to advice on funding applications, training, volunteering opportunities, archiving and ethical considerations – these are all cited in the database.
This year, I have continued to work in my roles as a trainer for the Scottish Oral History Centre at the University of Strathclyde and for the British Library/Oral History Society, and have delivered six scheduled and tailored Introduction to Oral History courses, online and in-person, and nine scheduled and tailored Introduction to Oral History courses for the latter, also both online and in-person. I have also undertaken a range of interviewing, transcribing and consultancy work for groups including Tape Letters Scotland, the Glenachulish Preservation Trust, the History of Parliament Trust and the National Theatre of Scotland, as well as some private family oral history interviews.
My own research work has mainly been in my role as a lecturer in History with the University of the Highlands and Islands. I have also continued to carry out freelance interviewing work, and have completed the manuscript for my upcoming book, Rainbows in the Windows: An Oral History of Young Families in the Covid-19 Pandemic, based on oral history interviews I carried out between 2020 and 2022. This is due for publication in early 2026. I have also completed a chapter on oral history, policy and professional practice for the upcoming new Bloomsbury Handbook of Oral History, also due for publication in 2026.
Dr. Mhairi-Jean Ross (also see Yorkshire)
‘We are Carbeth Hutters’, Carbeth Hutters Community Land Buyout Project (British Academy Funded)
In late 2025, I was awarded British Academy funding to document the Carbeth Hutters’ community land buyout and their century-long struggle for working-class land justice. This project uses oral history methods alongside video and audiowalk formats to capture the voices of a unique community who have fought to secure communal land ownership in Stirlingshire. The work builds on my 2014-2016 MEd dissertation, which charted the process of the Carbeth land buyout, and my ongoing role as a Board Director of the Carbeth Hutters’ Community Company. By combining oral testimony with immersive creative outputs, the project aims to make this remarkable story of collective resistance and working-class land rights accessible to a wider public, while ensuring the community retains ownership over how their history is told and shared.
Women of Easterhouse Oral Histories Project
My PhD research (2017-2024) employed life-course oral history methods to document the lived experiences of lone mothers in Easterhouse, Glasgow, from the 1980s to 2021. Through in-depth interviews and ethnographic engagement, I explored how women navigated poverty, place-based stigma, and lone motherhood across generations, with particular attention to the significance of female social networks for ‘getting by’ and ‘getting on.’ In October 2024, I hosted a community celebration event at Glasgow Women’s Library titled ‘Women of Easterhouse: A Celebration of Struggle and Solidarity,’ which brought together over 70 Easterhouse community members and stakeholders to share findings through video, publication, and dialogue. This work demonstrates the power of oral history to center marginalized voices, challenge deficit narratives about working-class communities, and create spaces for collective recognition and validation of women’s experiences. In 2025, I shared this work across a range of conferences and community events across the UK. Most memorably at the ‘Women, Housing and Places’ symposium which I co-hosted with a colleague at the University of Stirling.
Women, Housing & Place Symposium (September 2025)
In September 2025, I co-hosted the ‘Women, Housing & Place’ symposium at the Centre for Place and Memory, University of Stirling, bringing together researchers, practitioners, and community members to explore the gendered dimensions of housing and place-making. The event created a platform for sharing oral histories and participatory research that centres women’s experiences of housing precarity, homelessness, and community activism. By convening this symposium, I sought to amplify feminist housing scholarship and demonstrate how oral history methods can inform policy and practice in housing studies. The event fostered vital cross-sector dialogue and established new networks for collaborative research on gender, place, and housing justice across the UK.
