Free to Be Me – South Asian Stories from the Archives

Welcome to an ‘Archives Show Off’ event – which this time is a Behind the Scenes Tour.

Free to Be Me – South Asian Stories from the Archives – is a tour of the stores in Special Collections and Archives. Join us on Thursday 15th August 2024 at 12pm.

This behind the scenes tour will showcase material in Kent’s Special Collections and Archives that reveals stories and experiences of South Asian people and communities, and considers how South Asian heritage is represented in our archive collections.

An outline of countries in south asia colourfully decorated and with the text South Asian Heritage Month at the bottom right

Logo for South Asian Heritage Month

As part of South Asian Heritage Month we have begun to explore our collections with the specific intention of finding and revealing stories of South Asian heritage.

Stories recorded in archive collections are a powerful way of contributing to the collective memory of people, institutions and communities. These stories matter. However – they sometimes are difficult to find, especially when collections have not been catalogued, or the stories appear within the content of archive items which are not catalogued to that level of detail. If researchers don’t know that relevant material is there, then it remains unseen and effectively hidden.

Our aim is to develop resources to highlight the South Asian material in our collections aiding researchers in studying subjects that are often hidden from view or difficult to find within archive collections.

Join us in exploring first hand some of our initial findings as we begin this research across several of our collections including the University Archives, our modern literature collections, theatre and comedy collections, and the British Cartoon Archive.

Spaces on the tour are limited so please email specialcollections@kent.ac.uk to book your place. The tour is scheduled to take one hour.

#AntiRacism #Archives #SouthAsianHeritage

#FreeToBeMe #SouthAsianHeritageMonth #BehindTheScenes