Rhianedd Collins
(she/her)

Research student

School of History, Archaeology and Religion

I am a first year interdisciplinary PhD student (History and Computer Science) based in SHARE. A social and cultural historian who approaches research using 'history from below' frameworks, I am also a proponent for the value of community co-production and exploring alternative and original ways to package academic research for public consumption. My PhD research, therefore, explores the potential positive benefits that digital technology and community co-production have for historical research. My thesis is an oral history study of childhood in mid-twentieth-century south Wales, focused on themes of emotions, memory, relationships, place, and belonging. More broadly, I have research interests in Welsh history, lifecycle history, gender history, the history of emotions, memory studies, popular culture, historical game studies, and disability history.

Thesis

Digital History, Heritage, and Community Co-Production: Playing the History of Childhood

I am just starting my first year of doctoral study. The provisional title for my thesis is 'Digital History, Heritage, and Community Co-Production: Playing the History of Childhood'. An interdisciplinary study, it will encompass both history and computer science methodologies and frameworks. The main purpose of my research is to explore the positive potential that digital humanities has for engaging communities with their local history. Additionally, since technology is commonly perceived as an isolating factor within society, this project will also consider how digital humanities can be used to foster intergenerational socialisation.

At this early stage of the project, the initial concept is to create oral histories with local communities within southeast Wales focused around themes of childhood in the mid-twentieth century. These oral history interviews will be used to produce digital history games, which in turn will be the focus of a series of local heritage workshops. The workshops will invite local older people and children to interact with the digital history games and then reflect on the commonalities or differences between their present-day and historic experiences of childhood.

Funding sources

My studentship is fully funded through the Vice Chancellor's Strategic Fund.

October 2024 (current): PhD.

Department of History, SHARE, Cardiff University. 'Digital History, Heritage, and Community Co-Production: Playing the History of Childhood'. Funded internally through the Vice Chancellor's Strategic Fund.

September 2023 - September 2024: MA History.

Department of History, Swansea University. Partially funded by the Creating Futures Scholarship (School of Culture and Communications, Swansea University).

September 2020 - August 2023: BA History.

Department of History, Swansea University.

Honours and awards

Awarded a fully funded studentship for PhD study through the Vice Chancellor’s Strategic Fund, Cardiff University, 2024.
Awarded the Creating Futures Scholarship 2023/2024 for MA study, Swansea University.
Winner of the Ieuan Gwynedd Jones Prize 2022 (won £100 and publication of my winning essay in Llafur: Journal of Welsh People’s History).
Awarded the Glanmor Williams Prize in History 2023.
Awarded the J.S.H Roberts Prize in History 2022.