Roberts, Siân Lliwen (2010)
Ph.D. thesis, University of Birmingham.
This study adopts an auto/biographical approach to explore episodes in the life of the teacher, author and humanitarian activist Francesca Wilson (1888-1981). It is concerned with the process of researching and telling aspects of her life history as a means of contributing to the emerging historiography of women educator activists and Quaker women in international humanitarian relief in the first half of the twentieth century. It is structured around the concept of place as an interpretative device, and explores how three particular cities - Vienna (1919-22), Birmingham (1925-39), and Murcia (1937-39) - influenced her sense of identity and self and the trajectory of her subsequent life and activism on behalf of displaced people. Among the methodological aspects considered are issues of ‘truth’ and authorial voice, archival ambiguities and silences, and the role of networks and their representation in the archive. The study analyses her use of life histories for political and educational purposes, a theme that in itself raises other issues. Consequently, the use and exhibition of children’s art as a vehicle for giving ‘voice’ to displaced children is also considered, alongside an examination of the visual and textual representation of children by humanitarian activists and non-governmental aid agencies.
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