Everyday public history

Abstract

Public history is often viewed rather narrowly as something that ‘happens’ in familiar places at particular moments in time under the watchful eye of a ‘professional’. This is the public history of the impact and engagement statement: bounded, controlled, measurable. Conversely, I argue for a more ecumenical, diverse and anarchic understanding of public history. Drawing on observations from oral history, participant observation and digital ethnography, I present public history as something that suffuses the everyday lives of historians and non-historians alike as they continually construct their own histories through myriad sources and methodologies. This ‘everyday public history’ is diffuse, noisy, messy, often confusing, sometimes troubling; but never singular, straightforward, or authoritative. By studying this everyday public history, historians gain a fuller understanding of the power of the past in society, a greater capacity to comprehend and challenge problematic historical narratives, and a more productive entanglement between their work and people's everyday lives.