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The Windrush Scandal in a transnational and Commonwealth context

This three-year research project, based in the Institute of Historical Research, seeks to produce a scholarly examination of the so-called ‘Windrush Scandal’.

This three-year research project, based in the Institute of Historical Research, seeks to produce a scholarly examination of the so-called ‘Windrush Scandal’ within a fully transnational framework that properly considers the agency of a wide variety of official and non-official actors from both sides of the Atlantic.

Two Caribbean men walking along an arched old stone bridge

Research approach

The project’s key objective is to develop a unique digital research resource of extended interviews on the national and diplomatic activism around the Windrush scandal, supported by digitized government documents from the British archives and Caribbean government records. Oral and archival research methodologies will be combined to explore the links between the apparently distinct spheres of international diplomacy and community activism, providing insights into, on the one hand, unconventional methods of public diplomacy by Commonwealth representatives, and on the other the ways in which this international support enhanced and amplified the community-based campaigning and investigative reporting. Exploring these links will provide the central, overarching focus of this project.

Impact and outreach

The project will produce 60 oral history interviews which will be available electronically and a searchable database of existing oral history resources on the ‘Windrush generation’.

This oral history research will be supplemented by archival research in collections in the UK and the Caribbean.  Selected documents will be digitized and made available on the project website alongside the recordings of the interviews and supporting explanatory materials including a series of podcasts produced by the project team.

In partnership with the Black Cultural Archives in Brixton, the team will seek to ensure the broadest possible dissemination, with a special seminar at the BCA for community activists on the project’s findings. The team will also embark on a project ‘roadshow’ which will visit cities in the UK with significant Caribbean communities, as well as separate seminars aimed at the staff of the FCO, the Home Office and the Caribbean High Commissions in London.

Further Information

The project team includes