I’ve always been a visual learner, and it’s no different here either. I learn by writing things, by making connections between the place on the page and the thing that’s written there, and as a result, a frequent method of revision or planning for me has been mindmaps, or timelines. Basically, anything with a visual component. If you’re really intrigued, ask to see my MO2008 revision notes….
Anyway, back to the matter at hand – the start of my research and ideas for the MO3351 project. After a bit of reading, and a very helpful discussion with Bernhard over Teams, I have an idea of where to start… or at the very least, the areas in which I should tackle first.
To help me organise my thoughts, I’ve created this mindmap, which may also help explain where I’m going for the rest of you too, in an alternative approach to reading a lot of text (with the final result probably being confusion, as I’m not too sure how to coherently express my project ideas yet.)
Anyway, here is the mindmap.
I’m excited by this project, and the potential it has. I’m excited to see what could be done when viewing history through the lens of an ‘activist’ – learning how the past can inform the future, and our actions within it. I appreciate that this is such a wide area. I’m going to have to narrow, and be selective, but all the while am aware that refugee crises are not events solely of history, but are occurring day-in, day-out, even while a lot of us are locked down at home.
Finally, I especially don’t want to lose sight of the individual. People in the past have fallen into the trap of “one-size-fits-all”, leading to the emergence of the “unnamed refugee”. These people have names, families, and their own stories; and while it may be difficult to uncover them, I at least want to try. I don’t want this to be generic, or surface level: instead, story-telling with a purpose.