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ANNA MAGUIRE: I'm Dr. Anna McGuire. I'm a lecturer in public history, and I'm a Historian of Migration, Empire, and War. I've worked on the colonial experience of the First World

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War, and I'm currently researching a project about sanctuary for refugees in 20th-century Britain. Well, I think to explain what reading against the grain

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is it's best to start with what reading with the grain would look like. So if you can imagine a piece of wood or a piece of fabric, if you're thinking about the direction of travel,

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so reading with the grain basically means following the logic or the structure or the intention of the author of the piece. So imagine you were having a conversation with the author.

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You're kind of nodding along, thinking, yeah, this is how they're intending for me to read this. Reading against the grain is the opposite, so you're pushing back against that structure,

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that authority of the author, and thinking about what's not being said, what is in place to maybe shape the narrative that you're reading, what's missing, what needs to be explained or have more critical pressure

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put on it. So reading against the grain kind of came out of a move of post-colonial scholars, of subaltern scholars, and thinking

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about how do we recover the voices of the people who were colonised by the empire from within the archive. So it's a tool of recovery of finding voices of agency in documents that often only speak to-- or might be seen

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to speak to on the surface-- to those in power. So it's a really important tool of recovery, but more than that, it can help us explain the kinds of logics

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or rationales that were used by colonial forces, by patriarchal forces to impose certain restrictions. So it's a way of kind of interrogating what was the rationale behind those decisions.

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It's really interesting to think about how we read against the grain because there's lots of different ways of doing it, and a lot of it is dependent on the kind of source

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that you're interacting with or reading and the kind of archive that it's held. I guess the kind of classic example would be colonial papers held, for example, in the National

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Archives. So if you've got the papers of the Colonial Office, and you're opening your folder. And there might be a list of minutes then of letters

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between committee members and decisions being made and discussions being had. So reading against the grain in that case might be thinking, well, what's not

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being said in these letters? Or where is language being used to disguise meaning or intent within this committee meeting? What was the reason for it being called in the first place?

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Is there a context that I'm missing that I need to find out more? So for instance, if it was in the wake of an act of resistance, a rebellion, or a mutiny,

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how is that being discussed? And what you might be trying to ask is, OK, well, where can we see glimpses or moments where the colonised person or the enslaved person

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or the subjugated person, where their agency might be kind of coming into this decision-making? So that would be one example of how we might read against the grain.

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So one example from my own research was actually reading against the grain of photographs. So in my first book, I worked on colonial encounters of the First World War, and there's this amazing collection

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from the Ministry of Information of photographs taken of colonial troops during the conflict, which are just an incredible source to engage with. But they are taken by official photographers

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from Britain, commissioned by the government to take pictures that are then circulated, and we can think about some of the aims of that circulation, whether it's propaganda, whether it's

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demonstrating this idea of an empire united in arms through these images. So on the surface, they kind of read of this sort of intent to demonstrate imperial cooperation and collaboration

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in the war effort. So then when we look at the photos more closely, we can push back against some of that narrative to think about, well, what's actually

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happening in this shot. So there's one from my research that I really love, which is a picture of a Maori forester from New Zealand speaking with a French woman in a forest in France,

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and they're kind of set up as sort of like a congenial interaction. And he's got his axe slung over his shoulder, and she's looking [INAUDIBLE] these smiles at each other.

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But when you read the picture and think about, OK, well, what is really going on here, you can see the shadows being cast by the cameraman, by the other officials looking on,

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how this image has been constructed to create this message. And looking at the emotions on their faces, you can start to think, well, what must

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it have been like, actually, to be dragged away from your work to take a photo with this French woman who's very curious about you and why you're in her space? And it's those kinds of questions that kind of lead us

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to some really interesting propositions or interpretations of that experience in the conflict. So I think it's really important when reading against the grain to take into account the kind of context of production

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but also the context of recording. So if you think about a source that's currently held at the National Archives, so we know that's the repository of the government.

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It's an official source. It's been produced at that level. Then it's a very different technique to maybe reading against the grain of a source that's

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at a local archive or at a regimental archive if you're thinking about military material. So thinking about who made it and what kind of position they might have held gives us some insight

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into thinking about the kind of narrative that they want to introduce within this material, how they're constructing their worldview. But it also changes depending on the type of source

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you're engaging with. So when we're talking about a written document, the author might be there on the page, and we might be able to see their interaction

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with other people based on other files or papers within those files. If it's a photograph, it's slightly different because you've got the photographer's intent as well

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as who's paying the bill for them to go out and photograph that event and then how the image gets used or circulated. And when it's an object, then it's slightly different,

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so I think reading objects against the grain is a really interesting but also quite difficult challenge. So are we thinking about how the object has been intended to be used by the maker?

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Or are we thinking about how it's been adapted or actually used in practise? That kind of usage can be tricky to do, but when it's complemented with other kind of approaches,

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particularly oral history, or looking at photographs of how it's been used or films of how it's been used, we get new insights into that experience.

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So sometimes we talk about a triangulation of historical sources, and that's one really important tool for reading against the grain, so not taking things at face value,

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kind of maintaining a sense of critical interrogation of the material that we work with, and oftentimes we do that through text. So you might look at a committee minutes from one organisation

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and the newspaper reports about the decision that came from that and then another written source perhaps from someone who was involved in the committee, their diary or a letter, for example.

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And that kind of triangulation between the three just offers us a way of testing what was really going on there, how can we sort of generate a sense of understanding about that event.

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And that same thing can be done when we're thinking about text and image and object. So it doesn't have to be one of each, but it's one way of thinking about new perspectives

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on one type of historical event or occurrence or pattern. So in my own research, I used diaries and letters sent home from the front lines from soldiers who were participating in the First World War alongside images of similar scenes

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that might not be the exact pictures of those soldiers, but it gives us a sense of the kind of environment that they were engaging with or the kind of people they were interacting with and how

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that was photographed both by kind of the public sources, by official photographers, but also in more private, intimate ways in scrapbooks and private collections. And then objects just add in an extra layer

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to that kind of materiality. It gives us a real sense of what was happening in that space, so it's about kind of layering those sources on top of each other to build a more complete picture of what's

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going on, and often by doing that layering work we find more opportunities for resisting an official narrative or for new questions that we then need to pose to those more official sources.

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So finding sources for your search can be a bit of a treasure hunt, particularly if you're interested in experience that's hard to reach or hard to recover.

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I always remember my supervisor when I started my PhD comparing us to magpies, that we dip in and out of archives, looking for shiny things, and then bringing them back to the surface.

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For me, I always think about starting with an archive catalogue and kind of keeping those critical questions in mind. So while something on the surface

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might look quite boring or not particularly interesting or revealing of experience, using these reading techniques we can really push against that and think about ways of pulling material from it that we

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might not necessarily expect. So I tend to search for materials far and wide, anything sort of institutional or organisational that's had engagement with the subject area

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that I'm interested in, but also places where we might see more of that experience kind of from below, whether those are oral history collections, activist collections, private collections.

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And I think part of the job of the historian isn't just kind of bringing those all together and layering them together but thinking about their relationship between them

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and how power has shaped where they've been collected and how we're able to access them today. So in terms of accessing community or activist archives, those that chose not to be part of a big organisation

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or institution, I think the first thing that we want to do is build up a relationship of trust with that group so that they know that we're not there for any kind of, I don't know, insidious purposes, that they can trust that we're going

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to engage with their material in a way that not necessarily aligns with their politics but that thinks about a kind of responsibility and care for that material. So trust and having a relationship

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is often the best way to go, so that might be sending an email in advance, introducing yourself, introducing your research topic, and inviting them to ask some questions of you,

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maybe even having an online call or an in-person meeting before you begin working with that material. So that's the first thing. The second thing is also then how

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you maintain that relationship once you leave that archive. So oftentimes you go to a big organisational institution like the national archives or the London metropolitan archives or something,

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and you're one researcher hundreds who are going to pass through their doors in the course of a month or a year. If you go into a smaller archive,

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particularly one that's with a community group or an activist group or even maybe a private individual, this may be one of the few opportunities that they

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have to showcase their material or to see it have a bearing on research. So I think keeping up those networks of communication, offering to share what your research is looking like

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and how you're going to publish it, is often a really kind of kind and collaborative gesture to help work with it. And you get loads of new insights

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into the material when you have the opportunity to speak to someone who's actually put that collection together. So finding community or activist archives

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is often done by word of mouth. So you might visit a more visible collection, and they say, well, actually, we know this person. We've had some conversations with them.

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It might be that you go to an event that's around the historical topic or interest, and you come across people there. There may be other scholars who've maybe had

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the opportunity to engage with the collection who might act as sort of brokers or gatekeepers to kind of put you in touch with that organisation. So it is about a slightly more patient method,

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I guess, of research than being able to go and sort of order some stuff straight away and be able to get straight into the material. But it can often be really rewarding.

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So one of the great advantages that we have now as historical researchers is that so much material is being made available digitally, and certainly during the pandemic that was an absolute lifesaver for me

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as I was starting a new research project and interacting with sources online. And we've also seen the bearing that that's had on how we work in an archive itself.

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Lots of people go and photograph things and then take them home to engage with rather than making their notes in situ. So I think when we're thinking about the kind of relationship

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between digital sources and physical sources, it's just bearing in mind what might be missing from the digital source in terms of thinking about how an object feels, how heavy it is, what a photograph's size

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and scale is when it's in a lovely PDF as opposed to in front of you in a in a little folder, the possibility of missing annotations, things on the back. But also what you gain by being able to spend

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that time with a digital source that you just don't have with an archival document-- you can spend as much time as you want, really, poring over it.

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You can scale it up. You can see detail that you might miss if you're just flicking through a photo book in an archive.

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So I think thinking about how that interacts, how that shapes the kinds of questions that we pose or the sources that we tend to use as well is something that we also need to think about critically

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and think about, well, what has been digitised and why? So why is this collection in particular being chose to be made available in a digital form. Is there a bigger archival drive towards making this available,

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and if so, why? And what might that tell us in terms of our broader research? So my own process, when I go into an archive, is-- it's quite boring, and it's developed

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over a number of years. I used to go in with bits of paper and pencil and write down things that I thought were interesting. I've always been drawn to quotations

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that I think are really interesting, so that's always something I take a note of. But it's evolved over time, and I actually use a spreadsheet now to log my research, partly because it

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means if I do take photographs of it, I can pop it in the spreadsheet and then make my notes. But it offers a bit more clarity and logic to how I organise my material.

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So I can keep a note of which archive it's come from, what the reference number is, and then any descriptive aspects as well as then notes around quotations or particularly interesting things

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that come up in that source that I want to engage with. And then I have a final column where I think about, where will that fit in my research? How can I bring it together?

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Is there other sources that I want to connect it with? So yes, and my archival process also involves listening to music because it can get quite full-on being in that space for a really

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long time, so anything to make you comfortable and be able to sort of maintain concentration is always useful.