“Decolonising isn’t about writing an alternate narrative, it’s about creating space for multiple narratives” (Research participant, 2025)
This impact project aimed to extend the impact of workshops run on ‘Decolonising the British Empire Exhibition of 1938 through Augmented Reality Narratives’ by creating a series of 5 events over 5 months to allow space for discussion of Glasgow’s heritage from a racially literate perspective. Four workshops focussed on deepening engagement and building trust with the participant group. The final workshop was a summary/evaluation to allow us to understand the key issues for sharing beyond the group.
This project acheived the following:
Create further prompt materials, using the Empire Exhibition as a case study.
Create card decks to support polyvocality and acceptance of difference about Glasgow’s history/heritage.
Make use of the resources produced for the ‘Decolonising the British Empire Exhibition of 1938 through Augmented Reality Narratives’ to explore the issues in depth.
Deepen and widen the community of people who wish to explore multiple narratives of history.
Lead to greater racial literacy about Glasgow residents’ complex relationships to empire/colonialism, in a form that can be shared with policymakers and used as evidence for policy reform.
Workshops
The workshops took place on the following dates:
- 21st August, 6.00-8.15pm
- 4th September, 6.00-8.15pm
- 18th September, 6.00-8.15pm
- 2nd October, 6.00-8.15pm
- 16th October, 6.00-8.15pm
outputs
Policy briefing
Each page of the booklet is also available as an image file from https://radar.gsa.ac.uk/10825
Polyvocality Card Deck
A free card deck exploring the ways in which different people in Glasgow might respond to colonial history is available in digital form. Please email D.Abbott@gsa.ac.uk to request it. You may also be able to borrow a physical deck of cards if you are local.
The card deck can be used to explore differences of opinion, and to create empathy between different viewpoints when thinking about complex and contested history and heritage.
