Talking Records

Talking Records 2026: Spaces and places of care

Call for papers

Call for papers deadline

Friday 18 September 2026

Symposium date

Monday 7 December 2026

The 2026 symposium will explore histories of care and welfare and their intersections with histories of spaces and places. These histories leave complex traces in archival collections, entangled with histories of medicine, public health, poverty, government, social security and more.

Histories of welfare and care can be found across the collections at The National Archives. These range from records relating to welfare legislation to detailed documentation of particular institutions. These include the evolving responsibilities of the state for health and social care, the establishment of the National Health Service, and of documentation of institutions from medieval hospitals to Poor Law Unions.

The historic records of government offer rich insights into the diverse places and spaces associated with care and welfare. Plans, drawings, photographs, correspondence and many other documents testify to the ways in which space and place have shaped the provision of care and welfare in Britain and beyond. They also show how places and spaces have, in turn, been shaped by changing care and welfare practices, theories, and experiences.

We invite researchers and practitioners working with archival collections to present 15-minute papers exploring the spatial dimensions of care and welfare in any time period or global context. We particularly encourage contributions from early career researchers, and welcome alternative presentation formats, including creative responses.

Potential topics include, but are not limited to:

• institutions of care and welfare: hospitals, sanitoriums, hospices, almshouses, orphanages, clinics, creches, asylums, shelters, refuges, charities
• architecture and built environments: rooms, wards, facilities, buildings; planning, design, and use
• homes and households: family and domestic caregiving
• medical and therapeutic understandings of place and space: hygiene, climate, infection control, rest and recovery, convalescence
• outdoor spaces of care: ‘open air’ nurseries, hospital gardens, green spaces
• liminal, improvised, repurposed, or temporary places of care, such as field hospitals and ships
• embodied, subjective, and affective experiences of space and place: senses, emotions, memory
• community spaces of care, marginalised histories
• alternative places and spaces of care, such as ‘green’ and ‘blue’ social prescribing
• archives as places of care: for records, documents, artefacts, people, histories, readers, staff

The event is free to attend and we have a limited number of bursaries of £150, which can be used towards travel and/or accommodation.

Past events

Talking Records 2025: Pollution in the archive

Date

4–5 December 2025

Location

Online and at The National Archives in Kew

Histories of pollution, contamination, and environmental damage can be found in a diverse range of records in the collections at The National Archives.

Across different times and places, from the very local to the global, the concept of pollution is intertwined with histories of land use and management, agricultural practices, urban space, natural disasters, health and safety, and public health and welfare. From the soil to water sources and the air, all aspects of the environment might be vulnerable to the effects of harmful substances, including pesticides, industrial waste, and radioactive material. Light and noise may also pollute, and both human and non-human creatures can be vulnerable when environments, habitats, and ecosystems are contaminated.

In records at The National Archives, pollution histories intersect with industrial histories (e.g. coal mining, industrial accidents, military activity) and urgent contemporary questions about energy sources and climate change. Pollution is an ever-evolving concept, and pre-modern records too can speak to us about changing scientific, social, and cultural understandings of contamination across the centuries – in histories of disease, for example.

Resources

Watch Watch the online event - Talking Records Symposium: Pollution in the Archive on YouTube

This video can also be viewed on YouTube with optional closed captions. Watch "Watch the online event - Talking Records Symposium: Pollution in the Archive" on YouTube.