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 | I'm Jill, and I am based in Edinburgh. You will see from the paragraphs
below that I have a particular interest in the lives of working women, centred around what
has grown from a feudal agricultural region well outside the city boundaries to a
prosperous middle-class residential community which takes an increasingly important part
in the life of Scotland's capital city.
Edinburgh is beautiful - and not just at Hogmanay! If you would like to know
more about the city, and about my special research interests, read on!
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Works-in-progress
| I am beginning a PhD through the School of Scottish Studies at the University of
Edinburgh, under the subject area of urban ethnology. Specifically, I will be
exploring the area of women's lives between 1850 and 1950. I want to look at
how neighbourhoods emerge - what it takes to be a neighbour and how a sense of community
can be fostered, or why it may not; at features of life in a particular residential
area in Edinburgh - domestic service, how working opportunities developed for women,
single women heading households, changes in socio-economic and class structures over time
(has there really been what we might regard as change - or merely more of the same?).
Edinburgh is a fascinating city, from cultural, social and economic aspects, and of course
is emerging in a political sense with the setting up of the Scottish Parliament.
Love it or hate it, there is no doubt that this has started a process of
change which is inexorable, and which reflects the place of Edinburgh in the UK and
beyond.
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Future projects:
| As I am at the very beginning of my PhD studies (but a maximum of four years doesn't
seem all that daunting, given that it took six to complete my OU degree!) I am focusing at
present on basic hypotheses centred around in-migration and residential persistence in the
Morningside area. But, as so often is the case - and indeed should be to my
mind - as the breadth of the research expands it can open Pandora's boxes (or cans of
worms, depending on your mindset!), and I am open to collaborative suggestions focused on
similar subject areas.
I am also trying to write a novel, located again in Morningside and based around a ghost
story revealed to me last year. This is probably a long-term project, and I
would certainly welcome advice, support and encouragement from anyone out there! |
Past Projects
| As part of the DA301 Family and Community History course I undertook a piece of research
which focused initially on domestic service in Morningside, Edinburgh between 1871 and
1891. This developed (as is so often the case in research) into a closer
examination of household composition and occupational structures among single women at a
time when to be single and heading a household might have been thought of as not a
respectable thing to be doing.
This project report is available through the CD-ROM compiled by the DA301 course team.
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Last Updated
21 Nov 2004
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