Facilitators have identified three themes among the case statements for discussion in the weeks ahead. They are: “Ethics and Economics of Community Histories/Heritages,” “Ethical Training for Laboring Realities,” and “Shared Authority in Perspectives.” Please join the discussion by adding your comments below. Feel free to re-direct the conversation toward important ideas, oversights or nuances. Disagreement and contention welcome, respectfully.
2) How do we better train and support students and professionals for austere and intellectually-restrictive work place realities? What are “best practices” for these settings? Are we overproducing public historians? Regarding the job market, Stella and Dan discuss managing student expectations. Nichelle and Dan also call for more organizational space for public historians to talk about the hard lessons and realities of public history jobs. Stella makes an even bolder proposition: A National History Practitioners Union to advocate for better working conditions across the field.
Seems to me that Dan, Rachel Boyle, Nichelle, myself and others in this working group seem to agree that there needs to be an “organizational space” in which to promote public history, its training and application, its members, etc. Whether one calls it by the broad definition of “organization space,” or the more defined “cooperative” (like Rachel suggests) or even a union, as I do, I think we are circling the same wagons. Moreover, we might be onto something. How exciting!