This 30 month research project seeks to document, map, contextualize and critically analyse the development of the British antiques trade during the 20th century. The project will assess the cultural geography of the trade in antiques in a British context with a consideration of its international dimensions, especially the relationships to the European and North American markets. The project will document the trade in antiques, investigating a series of research questions related to the evolving business practices of the trade and the exchange and circulation of antiques, placing these practices into social, political and economic contexts and mapping these against the evolving cultural landscape of the consumption of antiques. It will result in a number of discrete, but interrelated academic and public-facing outputs, including an edited volume of essays, a conference and workshops, and a web-based interactive (keyword searchable) virtual map of Britain highlighting the locations of dealerships. Using GPS technology, and based on Google Maps, the interactive map will include consistent 'thumbnail' information and data sets, such as trading dates and biographical information for each firm; images of any significant objects that passed through the firm's hands; and links to any objects in public museum collections (in the UK, Europe and the USA). The website will also allow public participation in the research project through user-generated content, keying into the increasing interests of local histories through local heritage societies and family history groups. At the heart of the project will be discrete historical case study research projects into the history of a number of influential British-based dealerships utilizing previously unexplored archival material. An oral history archive based on interviews with retired and semi-retired members of the British trade will be assembled as part of a broader ethnographic study, concentrating on the more recent history of the trade, and in particular the transformation of the antique trade in the last few years of the 20th century. There has been a significant shift in emphasis in terms of art historical studies in recent years, with an emerging and consistent focus on the mechanisms and practices of the art market, and several major investigations into the history of the art market. But whilst there have been a small number of studies on antiques in terms of the history of collecting, the history of the British antiques trade itself remains a neglected subject. The preliminary mapping of the development of the 19th century antiques trade has already begun to highlight the significance of the development of the trade in the 19th century, but in terms of the 20th century trade there have been only a handful of published journal essays that have directed attention to this subject. Indeed, 'Memoirs of a 20th century dealer', the reflections on the trade in the period c.1940s-c.1980s by the late Roger Warner (2006), and 'Hotspur: Eighty Years of Antique Dealing', a celebration of the firm of Hotspur (2004), remain the only substantive pieces of writing on the subject of the 20th century trade, albeit emanating from the trade itself. This project will therefore direct further attention to the significance of antique dealers as active agents in the markets, highlighting the importance of their socio-economic and cultural practices. It will direct attention to the relationships between the history of the antique trade and the commercial antiques markets and established histories such as the history of 'decorative art', the histories of collecting, and the history of the public museum. It will also provide a new set of data that future studies and investigations can build upon, expanding the possibility of further analysis across a range of disciplines and approaches.

This Fellowship explores the benefits of co-producing energy history research with young people in museums. By collaboratively researching the histories of women and energy to co-produce a critical re-interpretation of domestic objects in Leeds Museums and Galleries' collections, we will effectively facilitate a public conversation via an exhibition, podcasts and digital classroom resources, on who has the power to make the decisions that need to be made to create the post-carbon home of the twenty-first century. I will work with Leeds Museum's established youth collective, the Preservative Party: a diverse group of 14-24 year olds. We will co-produce research founded in the numerous objects in the Leeds collections that represent the histories of energy but are rarely interpreted as such and never from the point of view of women influencing energy decisions. Building on the Preservative Party's work to explore the overlooked histories of museum objects, we will ask why it is important to understand how energy transformations were effected and often led by women in their homes? What can we learn from historic social and gendered drivers for change at a moment when we all need to transition to a post-carbon energy supply? How does co-production empower young people, often our contemporary leaders in climate activism, building new skills that enable them to be more effective environmental activists? The Fellowship will develop my research leadership in energy history through the co-production of research with young people. The project is founded on 20+ years of working together with Leeds Museums and Galleries to deliver educational engagement activities and teaching. I have led on cultural partnerships in Leeds, particularly during my 10-year tenure as the Deputy and then Head of the School of Fine Art, History of Art and Cultural Studies and successfully delivered the first Memorandum of Understanding between the University and our City museums and galleries. But I have never consolidated my research expertise in histories of the c19th home and my leadership in educational engagement and I have not yet co-produced research with the communities that I most want to learn from and impact - young people living in Leeds. The Preservative Party and I will co-create an exhibition and educational resources that will be disseminated on MyLearning.org: a digital platform for free National Curriculum Linked learning resources from arts, cultural and heritage organisations. These resources will speak to their current concerns about sustainability and the environment while questioning the history of decision making and the power of social persuasion in energy transitions. Focusing on the question of 'Who had/s the power to make energy decisions?' and reframing the history and historiography of this through women's experiences in the home, we will use cross-disciplinary explorations of the history of energy in a way that engages a diversity of voices in both process and outcomes. By co-creating the educational outcomes, our focus will be on continuing to develop the young people's agency in the way that education in heritage spaces is conceived and delivered in Leeds. I will share my learning on the benefits/challenges of co-production and its role in energy history research, via the work I do to support and inspire ECRs at the University, my museum collaborations, work on educational policy and my leadership of a national network of teachers, supporting them to support young people to develop the skills, cultural and science capital to increase their agency in energy activism. The Fellowship will create a step-change in my research leadership and will impact nationally and internationally our understanding of the importance of social and cultural history in energy futures and the role of young people, their teachers and our museums in generating environmental change.

This international research network asks: How do people of conflicting worldviews, memories and future visions encounter each other? Cultural, civic and educational organisations are expected to create a platform for such encounters and their public value is increasingly assessed on how well they reflect societal diversity in their core activity, outreach and governance. While some improvement on diversity measures, such as gender, age, ethnicity or disability, is evident within these sectors, less is known on what meaningful engagement across and within these categories looks like, why and how it matters and what it takes to foster it. This is an urgent question in the face of disconcerting societal tendencies around the world: the coarsening of public discourse in increasingly divided societies, the rise of political and military activism fuelled by hostility and violence towards the other, or the fast-spreading epidemic of loneliness and mental illness across and within generations and social strata. This network is based on the recognition that genuine engagement with difference of any kind is necessary for building peaceful, sustainable and healthy communities. It also acknowledges, however, that success on diversity measures alone does not guarantee meaningful encounters with those who are not like 'us'. Such engagement requires effort, can be difficult to bring about, and sharing the same space is a necessary but insufficient condition for it to occur. The Network addresses this challenge by shifting the theoretical focus from diversity as a social category to difference as a quality that defines every human being. This shift implies that human interactions of any kind are meetings with difference. They are not made meaningful by emphasising sameness, but by exercising an ethical commitment to preserving difference while making a genuine contact. How individuals and communities practise this encounter with 'the other' across diverse contexts of human activity can have profound consequences for addressing some of the global societal conflicts. The Network brings together international artists, linguists and philosophers to examine aesthetic and ethical dimensions of communal meaning making across geographical boundaries and domains of social life: in music and dance rehearsal rooms, in museums and art galleries, in theatres, markets, service encounters, schools. We will study existing research and experiential evidence of these interactions and examine what genuine encounters with difference look like and what it takes to enable them. The resulting theoretical and methodological frameworks will advance inquiry across academic disciplines and creative practices. The practical guidelines will support public institutions in the UK and internationally in their commitment not only to reach diverse communities but to become catalysts for genuine encounters across divides of any kind. More generally, through engaging with one another's disciplines, cultural contexts, existing research data and ways of working, the Network will develop new conceptual frameworks, analytical approaches and practical proposals for researching and living in complex, changing conditions. The Network will be organised in two one-day seminars, a public assembly and a dissemination lab to consolidate Network outputs. The seminars will include short data-led provocations, keynotes, experiential sessions and moderated conversations. The public assembly will reach out to a wide range of stakeholders, including arts organisations, educational charities, local authorities, health and mental wellbeing agencies and social care sector. The material will be disseminated through creative outputs (interactive website and a digital ethnography blog led by a Doctoral Researcher in Residence), social media and professional workshops. The Network will facilitate the development of new partnerships and inform future inquiry into global challenges of societal conflict.

Spaces supporting children and young people's learning are changing in response to the information technology revolution, government agendas in the field of culture and education and wider international agendas such as children's rights to have a voice and participate in matters concerning them.\nNew approaches to pedagogy are emerging in both the educational and cultural sectors and there are important questions arising about the roles of professionals and the rights of learners in these spaces.\nChildren from a very early age can participate in conversation (visual and textual) about design and new methodologies are developing that allow this to be realised as well as researched.\nThis series of workshops will allow for a collaboration of museum professionals with a group of senior academics who have current involvement in researching children and young people's learning in informal educational environments. The principal objective will be to develop strategies that support children and young people's view of the museum to inform design decisions and related research. The workshops, which will be hosted by museums, will explore existing methodologies and approaches that have so far been used in museum spaces to engage children in discussions about decision making around the principles of design. Participants of the workshops will then develop and adapt these approaches in situ. One workshop will involve children and young people. They will work alongside architecture students from the University of Sheffield who will be briefed to act in a support role to encourage the view of the museum space from the child's point of view to be recorded. Design activities on the theme 'the museum I'd like' will engage the children in a valuable process of envisaging the possibilities of museums as spaces for learning, exploration, discovery and research. The results of the workshops will be presented at an open conference at the end of the series and will be valuable to learners, parents, teachers and other educators in the educational and cultural sectors. A journal article will present and discuss the findings by key collaborators from the Museum and Higher Educational sectors.\n

The UK fashion sector is worth in excess of £26 billion, it employs at least 800,000 people and is a major contributor to the UK's reputation for a creativity and innovation. However, production of UK fashion is highly dependent on global supply chains where workers in the Global South in countries such as Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, India and Sri Lanka provide the labour to grow cotton, spin yarns, knit and weave fabrics and ultimately make the garments we wear in the UK. These supply chains have been associated with major ethical issues which can include various forms of discrimination, poor pay, bonded labour, child labour and dangerous working conditions. These issues are now best described by the umbrella term 'modern slavery'. But the fashion industry also provides employment for over 250 million workers, and for many workers fashion supply chains offer an opportunity to alleviate poverty, access education and develop social mobility for themselves and for their families. Therefore, the challenge for designers, brands, policy makers and the UN SDGs is how to eradicate issues of modern slavery, while retaining the positive aspects that fashion can provide for workers in the Global South. Eradicating modern slavery and creating sustainable supply chains is vital for the future of the UK fashion industry and for the planet. However, too often policies, initiatives and discussions aiming to improve sustainability and address modern slavery issues fail to understand and accommodate the complexity of these supply chains, the diversity of actors and the voices of workers involved in the journey of fashion from cotton farms to UK wardrobes. This project will describe this journey and its complexity using the voices of workers in the supply chain. Through collaboration with workers in India, it will create visual, audio, written and digital content that brings their hidden voices to stakeholders in the UK. By collapsing the cultural and geographical divides between producers and consumers, this content aims to facilitate dialogue about the connections between the clothes consumers in the UK wear and the workers who make them. These human stories will help designers, consumers, educators and policy makers improve their knowledge and awareness of the global fashion industry. The innovative content will be co-designed and delivered through collaboration with Leeds Museums and Galleries, the largest local authority-run museum service in England with one of the most significant multidisciplinary collections in the UK. This will be supported by the Public Engagement and Arts Educational Engagement Teams at the University of Leeds and the AHRC funded Future Fashion Factory. The project also supports the University's commitment to public engagement with its research and to the UN SDG accord. This Follow-On project builds on a previously funded AHRC project 'Impact of Covid-19 on management to eradicate modern slavery from global supply chains' (RC Grant reference: AH/V009206/1). This project, a collaboration between the University of Leeds and the Goa Institute of Management, India, explored the impact of the Covid on modern slavery risks for workers in fashion supply chains from the perspective of UK consumption and Indian production. The research project highlighted how solutions for sustainable fashion must reflect the priorities of the supply chain, and how established Global North views of fashion have ignored Global South perspectives. This has implication for the delivery of the UN SDGs, particularly for following SDGs which are the focus for this Follow-On project: - SDG 5 Gender Equality; recognising the majority of workers in fashion are female, - SDG 8 Decent Work and Economic Growth; the fashion industry is a route for poverty alleviation and GDP growth in the Global South, - SDG 12: Responsible Consumption and Production; understanding the link between fashion consumption in the UK and production in India.