Who Do We Think We Are? Doing Family History

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

This unit aims to provide students with the basic knowledge and skills required to research and write life stories in a global and culturally diverse context. Through collaboration with the State Records Office of Western Australia and the State Library of Western Australia, which hold many relevant records and provide access to users, the unit will comprise a series of case studies including hands-on workshops, giving students work integrated and practice-led experience. Students explore both 1., how to do biographical research and write their own family history and/or a globally and culturally diverse biography, as well as 2., how to use these skills in producing other forms of history, including public history. Students are introduced to the relevant sources, information, and techniques employed by family historians in constructing genealogies, including oral interviews, historical records, and photographs, to obtain information about a family and to demonstrate kinship of its members. Key themes are the exploration of global and historical processes of migration and identity-building through tracing family histories, from local to global.