News

Journey of discovery

A group of formerly nomadic indigenous people in Canada, who were forced to relocate and live far from their homelands in 1948, are the subject of an film project involving Essex sociologist Dr Colin Samson.

Dr Samson has just returned from Northern Labrador where he was working with two professional filmmakers as part of a project called ‘The Innu - 'Trail Of Tears': A Social Documentary of Survivors' Accounts of the Relocation of the Mushuau Innu.’ There he was exploring the story behind the government operation to transport by ship about 100 Innu from their homelands to an island 200km north. The operation was part of a broader assimilation campaign aiming to shift their way of life from hunting to wage labour.

Dr Samson interviewing Innu

Describing the project, Dr Samson said: ‘It was completely fascinating talking to the elders who could vividly remember what happened at that time. We heard many sad stories of hardship and hunger, but also of intrigue, resilience and creativity. It was after the death of the son of the chief that the Innu decided they had had enough and made the arduous journey back to their homeland by foot and dog team.’

As part of the project, Dr Samson and the film team travelled the 200km journey north to the area where the Innu were relocated, although this time the journey was by snowmobile and komatik (sled). Describing the experience, he said: ‘It was a gruelling journey over sea ice with temperatures of at least minus 20 degrees and with the wind chill probably more like minus 50 degrees in the areas beyond the tree line. It is certainly the coldest I have ever been.’

The project, a collaboration with the community of Natuashish, where the Mushuau Innu now live, will result in a short documentary film and a booklet, both of which will act as a permanent record of the story.

Picture caption: Dr Samson interviewing Innu

US research trip for literature student

A PhD student in the Department of Literature, Film, and Theatre Studies visited the University of Tulsa (TU) in Oklahoma last month as part of the ongoing American Tropics research project.

Following on from fellow student Leanne Haynes’’ research trip to the Caribbean, as reported in the January issue of Wyvern, Jak Peake was in Tulsa completing research for his thesis on the literature of western Trinidad.

Jak said: ‘‘Tulsa offered the opportunity to conduct archival research in the Special Collections of TU’’s McFarlin Library. My focus was solely on the work of VS Naipaul, Trinidad and Tobago’’s Nobel Laureate. Canonical in Trinidad’’s literary history and imagining, his writing is crucial to my research.

‘‘TU currently holds an ongoing life archive of VS Naipaul’’s writing, correspondence and manuscripts, alongside papers and correspondence by Dominican writer Jean Rhys and joitn publisher Andre Deutsch.’’

The trip follows one to Trinidad which Jak undertook during the autumn term. Whilst on the island he explored Trinidad’’s literary heritage, geography and history.

Jak’’s thesis focuses on the local texts of western Trinidad. He explained: ‘‘The variance within western Trinidad presents several themes: the metropolitan and cosmopolitan modernity of the city versus the underdevelopment and segregation of the country; the symbiosis between the city and country; and the capital as power base.’’

Jak’’s research is funded through the American Tropics research project which explores place and geography in tropical America through local literature. It is supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and will hold an annual conference at the Colchester Campus on 4-6 July.

Picture caption: Jak in Trinidad

The secret battle

What did home mean to British soldiers and how did it help them cope with the psychological strains of the Great War? The history of family relationships in wartime is the subject of a new book by Michael Roper, Head of the Department of Sociology.

Launched at the Social History Society conference at Warwick in April, The Secret Battle - Emotional Survival in the Great War shows how families helped maintain the morale of the young amateur soldiers who were the mainstay of the British army on the Western Front.

The book shows how trench warfare both turned these youths into men, and made them anxious and homesick. Consequently the battle to support soldiers was waged as much within the home as in the trenches. Families wrote letters, baked biscuits and cakes, knitted socks, helmets and mittens, hosted comrades on home leave and battled queues and rationing to support their loved ones.

Dr Roper said: ‘This intimate domestic struggle has received less attention than the soldier’s struggle to survive the stresses of trench warfare, but this study shows how the two battles were connected. Soldiers adapted the habits of home to the trenches. They shared their home comforts with comrades, cooked recipes sent by their mothers, and took mothers’ advice on how to wash clothing and stay warm. The secret battle was an emotional battle, to help the soldier hold himself together amidst the churned landscape, the violent percussion of heavy shelling, and the sight and smell of dead and dying comrades.’

Research for the book involved delving into over 100 collections of letters and memoirs with the help of psychoanalytical ideas, including those formulated by the veteran tank commander and later Kleinian psychoanalyst Wilfred Bion.

There will be a colloquium on The Secret Battle at 4pm on May 27. Hosted by the Department of History it will feature presentations from the author, and the renowned cultural historian of war from Birkbeck College, Professor Joanna Bourke.

Also in the printed May edition of Wyvern:

• Staff stress to be reviewed
• Olympic athlete supports fitness initiative
• Student sporting battle
• Essex to help those hit by the recession
• Lecture to look at Latin America
• Bushcraft skills for students