How can a group of grandmothers in a town square change your understanding of the place you grew up? Former St Andrews student Patrick Bence-Trower talks to Huw about his experiences creating a documentary on the sociocultural impact of the Francoist penitentiary system, the merits of an ethnokafenological approach to research, and the ways in which his documentary-making experiences allowed him to view his hometown and its occupants in a whole new light.

Please note that there are some imperfections in the quality of the sound recording of this episode, including some fluctuation in volume and occasional background noise. We apologise for this and hope that it doesn’t unduly impact your listening and enjoyment of this fascinating conversation between student and tutor.

The article Huw mentioned on the ethnokafenological approach can be found here: “Reclaiming the Land: Belonging, Landscape, and in Situ Displacement on the Plain of Karditsa (Greece).” History and Anthropology 31, no. 5 (October 19, 2020): 643–68.

Miniatures is the podcast of the ERC-funded ‘Dictatorship as Experience’ project at the University of St Andrews. We show how the big picture in history is best seen through the assemblage of individual and local stories, what the German historian Alf Lüdtke called ‘miniatures’. At Miniatures, we forego a studio model and instead adopt a ‘guerrilla’ approach to podcasting, grabbing interviews on handheld recorders with busy researchers whenever and wherever we can find them: in their offices, at conferences, or at a distance via video chat. 
To learn more about the wider project, visit: https://arts.st-andrews.ac.uk/everyday-dictatorship/

Miniatures Episode 10 – Embracing the Chaos: Documenting the Everyday with Patrick Bence-Trower

St Andrews is Scotland's first university and the third oldest in the English speaking world, founded in 1413.