Alice McKimm
Alice McKimm is a PhD student at Emmanuel College, Cambridge. Her thesis examines the multivocal yet interconnected movements to establish women’s shelters across Britain and Northern Ireland since 1971. Alice's research compares the literal and symbolic accommodation of women of different ages, ethnicities, sexual orientations and disability statuses in individual women’s refuges. It further characterises women’s shelters as a collaborative social movement, considering their influence on cultural discourses and national policy. This project is funded by a Derek Brewer Research Studentship and a Gordon Glasgow Scholarship.
Prior to her PhD, Alice completed an MPhil (2021) at the University of Cambridge, studying the representation of everyday violence in archived oral histories, 1880-1988. She achieved a BA in History and French from Durham University in 2020. Her undergraduate thesis, which examined cultural dissociation from child sexual abuse in late nineteenth-century newspapers, won the prize for the best undergraduate History dissertation at Durham University.
Alice is co-convener of the Cambridge Public and Popular History Seminar and previously co-convenes the Modern British History Graduate Workshop at Cambridge.
Alice's doctoral research on the women's shelter movements in Britain touches on the histories of gender, violence, non-governmental activism, race, disability, emotions, and space.
POL13: The Politics of Europe
O11: Twentieth-Century World
'Women's Refuges in Northern Ireland, 1974-2008', Social History Society Annual Conference, July 2023.
'Minority Ethnic Women’s Refuges in England and Scotland, 1981-1996', Contemporary British History Seminar, Institute of Historical Research, November 2022.
'The Women's Shelter Movements in Scotland and England since 1971', Voluntary Action History Society Conference, July 2022.
'Memories and Experiences of the Women's Refuge Movements in England and Scotland, 1971-1985', History of Memory and Emotions Graduate Workshop, University of Cambridge, June 2022.
'Reusing Archived Oral Histories in the Study of Everyday Violence in England, 1880-1988', Modern British History Graduate Workshop, University of Cambridge, May 2021.
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Key publications
Alice McKimm, 'The Welfare State Generation: Women, Agency and Class in Britain since 1945 by Eve Worth', Cultural and Social History: The Journal of the Social History Society. Volume 20: Number 4 (2023).
Alice McKimm, 'Sexual Violence against Children in Britain since 1965: Trailing Abuse by Nick Basannavar', Twentieth Century British History, (2022), https://doi.org/10.1093/tcbh/hwac041