A Citizen Science project

History is typically written from the top down, and is about big events, significant people and major changes.

Our History takes a different perspective, where history is told by and is about the people who lived during those times. In short, Our History will allow many people to tell their story, increase historical awareness by focusing on our common history and give historians access to a whole new and unique source material.

Our History will form the basis for historical research training in the education system, cohesion across generations, citizen involvement and achievements in the science of history.

The aim is to examine how societal functions and changes (e.g. the increasing number of women on the labour market, family policy and gender role) were experienced by the people who lived through them (their feelings, attitudes etc.). In this connection, new methods are used, such as digital history, but a number of source challenges remain: We have too few systematic sources describing how people experienced the historical development. Our History seeks to answer that challenge and will contribute both concrete sources and the development of innovative methods for collecting this source material.

The project is based on the principles of inclusion, active contributions from citizens and reciprocity from Citizen Science and will, in partnership with upper secondary schools, archives and other history actors, collect the Danes’ stories and apply them in curriculum-based teaching. The project focuses on topics such as welfare, children and the family in the period 1950-2000, but can be expanded.

The project takes place in collaboration with 15 upper secondary school classes.

Would you like to know more?
Contact persons:
Klaus Petersen, Professor, Centre for Welfare State Studies – klaus.petersen@sdu.dk 
Thomas Kaarsted, Deputy Head, SDUB, SDU Citizen Science Knowledge Center – thk@bib.sdu.dk