Historiography is equally about the present as it is about the past. We turn to history with specific questions look at what is important to us at that specific moment. That is why during the the Covid-19 pandemic there have been an apparent and predictable interest in the history of pandemics, from the plague to Spanish flu. We have looked at the history of medicine to see how we have solved similar crises in the past, to draw lessons and predict what is to come, but also to show how history does not repeat itself. We have drawn parallels between today’s fight against the virus and yesterday’s wars to find examples of the mobilisation, organisation and solidarity that we need. We have found not only similarities, but also many differences. We can also go back to see where we took a turn and ended up where we are at the moment, and this is what I hope to do as a researcher of childhood in the last quarter of the twentieth century.
Covid-19 reached Britain two months after I moved to London to work on this project as a Marie Curie fellow based at the UCL, and days after I had completed the preliminary research in the archives. Although this project had been in the works for over a decade, this website is the product of the lockdown period that followed. It is oddly fitting to launch it at a time when the effects of the 1980s and 1990s, from the erosure of social security, to individualisation and to intersectional inequalities are felt more dramatically than ever, so much so that one Conservative Prime Minister felt the pressure to repudiate another Conservative Prime Minister’s famous remark “there is no such thing as society.”
The website comprises of two main sections. The first is the exhibition, where I publish short pieces on particular topics about childhood in the 1980s and 1990s, with links to my findings in the archive, images from the period, and reading suggestions. This section will feature around 25 short pieces in total that I will upload as I write, and which, hopefully, will evolve into an actual pop-up exhibition if the virus permits. The second section is this journal which will feature my research diary and articles as well as contributions by guest researchers that locate childhood in the end of the twentieth century. You can follow this space, or the social media accounts on twitter, facebook, and instagram to get updates. Please contact using the details below if you want to contribute to the project with a piece, image, or idea.
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