PhD History candidate Deanna Lyncook shares her research titled “Saturation point? Handsworth as a site of diversity in the post-war inner city.”
At this year’s Black History Month Research Showcase, PhD History candidate Deanna Lyncook shared her research titled “Saturation point? Handsworth as a site of diversity in the post-war inner city.”
Her talk examined Handsworth, Birmingham, a neighbourhood shaped by post-war migration from across the New Commonwealth and home to cultural icons like Benjamin Zephaniah, Apache Indian, and Steele Pulse. Drawing on historical and political discourse, Deanna situates contemporary narratives about migration and “integration” within a longer history of anti-immigrant sentiment and educational debates in post-war Britain.
Currently based at the University of the West Indies, Cave Hill through a Leverhulme Trust Study Abroad Studentship, Deanna’s wider PhD research explores the transnational experiences of Caribbean children within the British education system, both in the UK and its Caribbean colonies.
Beyond academia, Deanna is also the host of The History Hotline, a podcast dedicated to Caribbean and Black British history. Deanna has worked in public history and heritage spaces as an oral history and project officer at the Museum of Methodism, curating an exhibition on Black and Asian leaders in British Methodism. She has also worked on historical research projects for the Society for Caribbean Studies, the University of Leeds, SOAS, BBC Radio London and the Times Radio. She also co-organised ‘The Issue of Truth’ a Black British History Conference with Olivia Wyatt.