Episode 1 – What Is Everyday Life?
We all experience everyday life – but just what exactly is it? Dr Kate Ferris and Dr Huw Halstead discuss what it means to study ‘everyday life’ in the past and why this is such an engaging yet challenging kind of history. They are joined by special guests Prof Claire Langhamer (University of Sussex), Dr Claire Eldridge (University of Leeds), Prof John Bennet (British School at Athens/University of Sheffield), Dr Nikos Papadogiannis (Bangor University), Dr Claudio Hernández-Burgos (University of Granada), and Dr Joshua Arthurs (West Virginia University).
Episode 2 – Favourite Miniatures
What can we learn from studying small, localised, and perhaps seemingly inconsequential incidents? Dr Kate Ferris and Dr Huw Halstead unpick some compelling stories that reveal the richness and texture of everyday life history. Featuring special guests Prof Claire Langhamer (University of Sussex), Dr Claire Eldridge (University of Leeds), Prof John Bennet (British School at Athens/University of Sheffield), Dr Claudio Hernández-Burgos (University of Granada), and Dr Joshua Arthurs (West Virginia University).
Episode 3 – The Secret to Happiness: Everyday Emotions with Prof Claire Langhamer
What’s the secret to everyday happiness? Prof Claire Langhamer (University of Sussex) joins us to discuss this question as well as love, agony aunts, the concept of ‘ordinary people’, and the importance of reliable stationary.
Episode 4 – Why the Fascists Excavated Rome: Everyday Interactions with the Past with Dr Joshua Arthurs
Why did the Italian Fascists excavate Rome? Dr Joshua Arthurs (West Virginia University) talks to us about Fascist archaeology and what this can tell us about how the regime understood the past and envisaged the future, as well as introducing us to his latest research on everyday life during the 45 days in 1943 when it seemed that Fascist rule was over.
Episode 5 – Why Leisure Is Not Just Having Fun: Youth, Politics & Sexuality with Dr Nikos Papadogiannis
You’ve heard of ‘Americanisation’, but what about ‘Sovietism’? Dr Nikos Papadogiannis (Bangor University) describes youth culture, leisure, politics, and sexuality in Cold War Greece in the years after the fall of the Greek military dictatorship in 1974.
Episode 6 – Stealing 99 Bottles of Alcohol: Military Tribunals & Memory Activism with Dr Claire Eldridge
Archives may be dusty places, but as Dr Claire Eldridge (University of Leeds) shows us they are far from being dry and emotionless ones. Drawing on her research on Algerian history and French colonialism, Claire discusses first how two groups of postcolonial migrants from Algeria to France remember the colonial past, and second what we can learn about soldiers’ lives during the First World War from the records of military tribunals.
Episode 7 – When Ethnicity Is Taboo: Everyday Ethnicity in Rwanda with Dr Meghan Laws
What’s it like to live in a country dealing with the traumatic aftermath of a genocide? And in a country that also criminalises most public expressions or discussions of ethnicity? Dr Meghan Laws (St Andrews) joins us to talk about her work in Rwanda and the ‘hidden transcripts’ of ethnicity that lie beneath the surface of the official ‘ethnic amnesia’.
Episode 8 – Miniature Worlds: Live at Being Human 2020
A landlady whose miniature silt island was at the centre of an Anglo-French territorial spat. The Scottish noblewoman who freed her kidnapped husband by masterminding an abduction of her own. The Greeks who reach back in time to memories of famine to understand the financial crisis. The ancient potter whose thumbprint has survived the ages. And the temptation of the box marked ‘Happiness’. Listen to an edited recording of our live podcast at the 2020 Being Human festival to dive into these miniature worlds! (Recorded November 2020)
Episode 9 – Everyday Life in Pandemic 1: Time, Diarists, and the Scotch Egg
In the first of a two-part special on everyday life in the COVID-19 pandemic recorded during the UK lockdown, Dr Emma Hart (University of Pennsylvania, formerly University of St Andrews) talks about how the pandemic caused her to reflect differently on the 18th-century diarists she studies, and Dr Kate Ferris (University of St Andrews) discusses how the insights and conceptual tools of everyday life history can be used to interpret the furore over the Scotch egg and the “substantial meal”.
Episode 10 – Embracing the Chaos: Documenting the Everyday with Patrick Bence-Trower
How can a group of grandmothers in a town square change your understanding of the place you grew up? Former St Andrews student Patrick Bence-Trower talks to Huw about his experiences creating a documentary on the sociocultural impact of the Francoist penitentiary system, the merits of an ethnokafenological approach to research, and the ways in which his documentary-making experiences allowed him to view his hometown and its occupants in a whole new light.
The article Huw mentioned on the ethnokafenological approach can be found here: “Reclaiming the Land: Belonging, Landscape, and in Situ Displacement on the Plain of Karditsa (Greece).” History and Anthropology 31, no. 5 (October 19, 2020): 643–68.
Episode 11 – Defining Normality: Consumption and the Everyday with Frank Trentmann
What do hot baths, umbrellas, teenage bedrooms and KPop have in common? Islay Shelbourne and Dr Nathaniel Andrews are joined by Professor Frank Trentmann to discuss all aspects of consumption and the everyday, including methodological challenges, the impact of routinization on everyday energy consumption, and how understanding past consumption practices can help us navigate current and future climate and cost of living crises.
More information about Professor Trentmann and his work can be found at www.bbk.ac.uk/our-staff/profile/…79/frank-trentmann
Episode 12 – Navigating the Borderlands: Everyday Shopping Practices with Nedson Pophiwa
Just why do people travel thousands of kilometers to go to the shops? Dr Ushehwedu Kufakurinani is joined by Dr Nedson Pophiwa to delve into the fascinating world of shopping at the borderlands. Dr Pophiwa takes us to the Zimbabwe-South Africa border towns of Beitbridge and Musina, exposing the realities of cross-border shopping, the complex networks of transport and trade, and the methodological challenges of gathering data at the border.
Episode 13 – Icons of Consumerism: Advertising and Consumption with Natalia Milanesio
What can drinking customs and advertising company employees wearing cheap shoes tell us about Argentine consumption habits? Dr Nathaniel Andrews is joined by Professor Natalia Milanesio to explore her fascinating work on consumerism, advertising and the everyday in Argentina. Professor Milanesio introduces us to consumer culture and the everyday in the Argentine and Latin American contexts, including how to find the everyday in both archives and advertising campaigns, the dramatic expansion of consumption practices in Argentina under Perón, the relation between consumption and gender norms in mid-20th century Argentina, and the role of food within the study of Latin American consumerism, advertising and everyday life.
More information on Professor Milanesio’s work and publications can be found here.
Miniatures Episode 14 – History in the Present Tense with Claire Langhamer and Hester Barron.
What can a children’s essay assignment tell us about the hopes and dreams of a generation of schoolgirls? Dr Huw Halstead is joined by Professor Claire Langhamer and Professor Hester Barron to discuss their book ‘Class of ’37: Voices from Working-class Girlhood’, published in 2021. Hester and Claire take us through the writing of the book, from the use of mass observation reports and the essay prompts of a classroom of schoolgirls in Bolton, to oral history interviews with their descendants and the structural and tense choices made when writing a book their mums could read.
More information about ‘Class of ’37: Voices from Working-class Girlhood’ can be found here.
Miniatures Episode 15 – The History of Everyday Life History in Mexico with Alfredo Ruiz Islas
Statement following the death of Pilar Gonzalbo Aizpuru (1935-2024)
We would like to express our deepest condolences to the family, friends, colleagues, and students of Dr. Pilar Gonzalbo Aizpuru who sadly passed away on the 26th of February 2024, at the age of 89. Pilar Gonzalbo Aizpuru was a pioneer in the history of everyday life and, as we discuss with our guest in this episode, her work has had a considerable influence on historical scholarship in Latin America and beyond. Pilar Gonzalbo Aizpuru will continue to inspire historians on both sides of the Atlantic, and this episode is dedicated to her.
How have Mexican scholars approached the complex world of everyday life histories? Dr Nathaniel Andrews is joined by Dr Alfredo Ruiz Islas for a wide-ranging discussion on the origins, methodological approaches and key works within the field of Mexican Everyday Life History. Dr Ruiz Islas takes us through the development of the discipline and introduces us to the seminal work of one of its founding members – Dr Pilar Gonzalbo Aizpuru. Tune in for discussions of sources, interdisciplinary challenges and the way in which colonial experiences influence both the realities and studies of everyday life in Mexico.
More information about Alfredo Ruiz Islas can be found here.
Miniatures Episode 16 – History at the Border: Everyday Life in Honde Valley with Nicholas Nyachega
What can the everyday practices of people at the Zimbabwe-Mozambique border reveal about challenges to state power and state definitions of criminality? Dr Ushehwedu Kufakurinani is joined by Nicholas Nyachega to discuss Nyachega’s fascinating work on the Honde Valley and the Zimbabwe-Mozambique borderlands. Nyachega introduces us to the Honde Valley as an example of a contested space, in which local practices and customs challenge state definitions of legal border crossing as enforced by patrols and criminal convictions. Tune in for discussions of research methods, ethics and Nyachega’s call for new ways of interpreting and accessing the past in a postcolonial context.
More information about Nicholas Nyachega can be found here.
The music you hear at the beginning and end of Miniatures is a Cypriot song that accompanies the traditional Sickle Dance. It was performed by the folk band Oi Palaiológoi. The violin is played by Roddy Beaton and the outi is played by David Hughes. Our thanks to the band for their permission to use the track.