People, Place and Community Seminar: Local Histories of Lockdown

In the context of the global Covid-19 pandemic, spring 2020 saw ‘lockdown’ across the UK. How has this experience of lockdown nuanced our understanding of local and regional identities, and the history of locality and place? How has 2020 highlighted the significance of local experience and local placed identities? How can professionals in history and heritage record COVID 19 as a lived and local experience, archiving the impact on specific communities? This seminar approached these questions – and how different disciplines based in localities have responded to them - through museums, archives and archaeology.


Joanna Terry is the Head of Archives and Heritage, Staffordshire, Dr Lucy Shipley is the Finds Liaison Officer for the Portable Antiquities Scheme for Devon and Ben Paites is the Collections and Learning Curator at Colchester Castle Museum. They will discussed the challenges (and opportunities) of lockdown to the understanding of history and heritage and how it is recorded.