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Staff Profiles

Dr Andy Clark

Research Associate in Oral History

Background

I am an established, independent postdoctoral researcher, responsible for designing and leading innovative research projects that cut across disciplinary boundaries. I have expertise in modern Scottish socio-economic history, particularly the multiple legacies of deindustrialisation. I recognise the importance of transdisciplinary working, and am currently engaged with projects involving insights from criminology, terrorism studies, social gerontology, and histories of health and wellbeing.

 

I am Principal Investigator on a groundbreaking new study linking the impacts of historic social and economic rupture with experiences in later life and healthy ageing (ESRC New Investigator Award). Between 2019 and 2022, I was Principal Investigator on a study combining approaches from criminology and oral history in an examination of the Lockerbie Disaster, 1988 (British Academy/Leverhulme). I am currently leading a multi-institutional team of scholars to develop a major new grant emerging from this study.

 

In 2023, I was awarded a fellowship with the Newcastle University Policy Academy, gaining the skills to engage with policy makers in the dissemination of research findings. I consistently disseminate my work through the media, including: contributions to BBC Scotland Television and BBC Radio (regional and national); appearing as an expert correspondent on live TV and radio broadcast in the UK and USA; and my research has been featured in newspapers including The Sunday Post, The Herald, and The Mirror. I have worked with partner institutions including secondary schools, heritage organisations, the public sector, voluntary groups, and trade unions in the development of research projects and the commemoration of events and anniversaries.

 

 

Funding and Awards

 

  • Economic & Social Research Council, New Investigator Award, 2020 (£292,000)
  • British Academy / Leverhulme Trust Small Research Grant, 2019 (£9,849)
  • British Academy Rising Star Engagement Award, 2018 (12,654)
  • National Lottery Heritage Fund / The North of England Institute of Mining and Mechanical Engineers, 2020 (£4,357).

 

Education

 

  • PhD in History. University of Strathclyde, 2017
  • MA in History. Central Michigan University, 2012
  • BA in History with First Class Honours, 2011


Research

My research examines the full range of lived experiences through the process of deindustrialisation. My first monograph – Fighting Deindustrialisation (Liverpool University Press, 2022) – seeks to complicate our understandings of manufacturing closure by returning to the industrial workplace, and in particular the feminine workplace. Through a case study analysis of opposition to factory closure in 1980s Scotland, I argue that notions of ‘smokestack nostalgia’ fundamentally downplay the experience of women workers in industry, and that urges to move away from workplace analyses risks marginalising neglected perspectives on industrial work and the effects of shutdown.


Recently, I have analysed the ways in which deindustrialisation continues to impact working-class communities in Scotland, particularly through unemployment, addiction, deprivation, and organised crime. This research emerged from a highly significant Scottish Government report that I co-authored based on national fieldwork analyses.


I am the PI on a project with funding from the ESRC that considers the relationships between deindustrialisation and wellbeing in ageing. This transdisciplinary study seeks to break new theoretical ground in assessing the ways in which drastic socio-economic change contribute to cumulative dis/advantage in later life. The study adopts a novel approach to cohort recruitment, through collaborating with the ongoing Thousand Families of Newcastle longitudinal birth study, which has been running since 1947.


I am also interested in oral histories of difficult and distressing events across the life course, although these are events that occurred decades previously rather than instantaneous disaster oral history. Since 2019, I have led a new oral history project examining the Lockerbie Disaster, 1988. Working with Dr Colin Atkinson, we interviewed 12 first responders to consider how they reflect on their experiences and how memories change over time. In 2022, we visited Syracuse University to work in their Pan Am 103 archive and participate in their annual week of remembrance. In December 2023 – the 35th anniversary of the tragedy – we presented our findings as part of the Insights Public Lecture series, and worked with BBC Radio on the production of new programmes emerging from our groundbreaking approach.



 


Publications