I really enjoyed seeing all the presentations that everyone has uploaded and I have a few comments about my own thoughts.
Hannah, I found your presentation on the “Narratives of Journey” deeply interesting and it led me to reconsider my own thoughts and beliefs surrounding refugees. Your initial slides, asking what we see when we think ‘refugee’, made me realise the expanse of the topic and the narrow perspective that is delivered in the Western world.
I liked your shift to the conceptual aspect of the study of refugees, allowing you greater scope to achieve the transnational aims of your project. Further to this, the link that you illustrated between zombies and refugees once again made me reconsider my own experience and interactions with this topic. I live down in Dover, on the South coast, a short ferry away from Calais and I feel that the general understanding of refugees and their situations are shaped and moulded by our geographical position and by the information we are exposed to. The matter of ‘visibility’, whereby you mentioned that refugees are either invisible, or hyper-visible, to the point where those two concepts amalgamate as zero recognition. Overall, I found your presentation deeply thought-provoking and I would urge anybody who has not yet seen it to do so!
Angus, I equally enjoyed your presentation on the Welsh Subaltern, a concept and a field of history with which I am shamefully unacquainted. Whilst I found your presentation interesting in its content, it was my resonance with your thoughts on comparative methodology that stood out to me the most. Your desire to compare the characteristics between subaltern groups is very sound in theory and will hopefully deliver a fruitful result. The methodological benefits and possibilities that come from employing a comparative aspect are myriad I am very intrigued to see what your findings are.
On the matter of source collection, you mentioned a difficulty with regards to finding truly subaltern sources. Whilst I wish I had more advice to give on this issue, my only suggestion would be to find the more mainstream sources and, by way of analysis and comparison, figure out what their impact filtered down onto those below. I hope this helps and thank you again for your presentation!