Making Archives in Place: Adopting a creative exchange approach in heritage research

Abstract

This paper provides a reflexive account of creative exchange in critical heritage studies research. It does so by recounting the methodological opportunities and challenges of researching on a large interdisciplinary heritage programme. We tested this creative exchange approach when undertaking fieldwork with a museum and a history society in the UK’s Clay Country in Cornwall which resulted in a public-facing output: a short film titled ‘Archives in Place’. We argue that this creative exchange approach enabled us to cross-fertilise our heritage research themes of ‘transformation’ and ‘profusion’, and we illustrate how new insights were revealed through examples taken while we were recording, analysing and editing the short film. By means of conclusion, we encourage heritage researchers to critically engage with methods and to have confidence in experimenting with creative methodologies which have the potential to open up new perspectives for heritage studies.