Research Project: ‘Future Pasts, Past Futures’
In this project you will research individual stories relating to objects that are owned by family or friends. ‘Preserving the past for future generations’ is important for documenting the past. Preserving things, ideas and traditions is central to heritage. Your research project will explore what objects and oral stories can tell us about the future.
This project will help you develop your research and data collection skills using both primary and secondary sources and allow you to gain practical experience in using research methods. You are required throughout the project to gather data for your research using the following methods:
• Literature Review (Object facts, history and object/Material specification)
• Gathering Artifacts (Object elements and Material evidence)
• Interview Techniques (Oral Histories, Unstructured Interviews, Narratives)
• Ethnographic Research (Observational Research (participant and nonparticipant Research – Photography or Visual Anthropology), and Narratives)
Research Proposal
In the research proposal you will explain:
Literature Review
Oral History
You will conduct oral history research into how the future is implicated in the past.
The key questions that you will explore in this project are:
1)What is the memory that changed life?
2)What is the future aspect of that object?
3)What the study of the future in the past tell us about Emirati society?
Presentation
You will prepare and present an oral presentation about your project.