Dr Victoria Hoyle
Senior Lecturer in Public History

Research

Overview

Victoria’s primary interests are in the social, cultural, and emotional impacts of public history practices. She specialises in the use of participatory, qualitative and action methodologies, working directly with individuals and communities affected by her research.

She is currently collaborating with colleagues at the University of Sheffield and Leeds on the impacts of urban wealth elites in northern cities since 1800. Victoria’s strand of the project will work with local and marginalised community groups to explore how histories of wealth can open up conversations about inequalities in the present. 

This builds on Victoria’s PhD research (‘Who Do Archives Think They Are? Archives, Communities and Values in the Heritage City’, York, 2018), which examined the relationship between archival heritage, social justice and democratic process, in the context of local and community activism. This is the subject of her book, The Remaking of Archival Values, which is due for publication with Routledge in 2022.

Victoria also researches child social care, health and wellbeing in the 20th and 21st centuries, with a focus on difficult and contentious histories of trauma, violence and abuse. Her next book project will explore how histories of child sexual abuse have been constructed and presented in public in the context of recent transitional justice processes in the UK and Ireland.

Teaching

Undergraduate

An example of modules taught:

• HIS00130I Public History Project
• HIS00197H Children, Health and Welfare in Britain and Empire, 1830-1990

Postgraduate

An example of modules taught:

• HIS00147M Concepts and Approaches in Public History
• HIS00050M Public History Placement