Developing Healthy Engagement

The first research enablers workshop brought together research-enabling staff from across the University of Leeds, with participation from three Schools, three Faculties and four central services. We reflected on our experiences of supporting researchers working on emotionally challenging material, be that archival, collections, or data-based. We used creative facilitation methods to explore the qualities of a researcher, and a researcher’s journey through an emotionally challenging research project. Some participants stayed to take part in the HEN workshop 2 which followed this session. 

How does it feel to visit an archive? How can archives better support researcher wellbeing? What might trauma-informed knowledge exchange and engagement practices look like? The second HEN workshop brought together creative practitioners, archivists, and academic researchers from across the UK to discuss and reflect on the ways in which archive environments, and those who shape them, might be better equipped to facilitate engagement with emotionally demanding histories. 

The workshop was preceded by a “Chatty Reading Room” with the Brotherton Library Cultural Collections team which offered a chance to handle material, explore and chat about what it felt to be like in a reading room at the University of Leeds Brotherton Library. 

In the second research enablers workshop we considered the concept of “Grimpact”: the negative consequences of research impact. We worked on a case study exercise focusing on the positive and negative consequences of a research engagement project at different stages, concluding that the positive and negative consequences can be intertwined. We thought about cases where engagement and impact can have negative effects for the researcher. Here we also considered the multitude of university institutional services which support a research impact project at different stages and the ways that these sources of support can be joined up.

In this workshop, we were joined by external creative practitioners and many colleagues from the University, with strong representation from the Digital Creativity and Cultures Hub. In the morning session, ‘Experiencing the Digital’, we heard from three creative practitioners who invited us to consider the simultaneously liberating and isolating aspects of digital research, and the need for support structures for those engaging in it. A practical activity prompted reflection of the sensory impact of digitising physical materials. In the afternoon session, ‘Practising the Digital’, our speakers discussed practical innovations in community editing, VR exhibitions, and immersive sound. The day ended with participants sketching their own digital archive blueprints, drawing inspiration from the day’s focus on creativity, access and care. 

What institutional support do we need from others? What self-support strategies could we put in place? How and why might engaged research projects elicit unexpected emotional experiences amongst participants? 

The workshop explored these questions and more. Centred around three structured conversations between archive professionals, creative practitioners, and academic researchers, the workshop prompted discussions about the role of emotion in ethical research design and engagement practices.