3S researcher Martin Mahony has received funding from the Arts & Humanities Research Council to work with colleagues in the UK and the Caribbean to shed new light on the volcanic geoheritage of the Caribbean island of Montserrat. The project, titled ‘Archives Assemble! Activating the Archives to Collaboratively Reimagine Volcanic Geoheritage’, brings together researchers from three UK universities, the UK National Archives, and the Montserrat Volcano Observatory with specialists from the Montserrat National Trust, Montserrat Public Library, Montserrat Tourism Division, and the Seismic Research Centre of the University of the West Indies.
Together, the team will build a new and accessible digital archive of materials which tell the story of the 1990s eruption of the Soufriere Hills volcano and its impacts on the people of Montserrat. This new archive will inform plans to develop a Geopark on the island, which will bring the history of the volcanic crisis to life within the very landscapes it helped transform, as well as a new play which will explore the human aspects of living through a volcanic crisis – lives upended, urgent decisions, uncertain scientific advice, and lessons from history remembered or forgotten.
The project will build on findings from the interdisciplinary ‘Curating Crises’ project, which brought together volcanologists, human geographers, librarians and archivists to explore the colonial shaping of volcano science and its legacies in the present. It will create a lasting legacy of geoheritage materials which bring the archives to life, as well as exploring their silences and omissions.
Many of the project outputs will be launched at SHV30, a conference being held in Montserrat in July 2025 to coincide with the 30thanniversary of the onset of the eruption. It is hoped that the play will then make its UK debut in the autumn.
