Role
Verusca Calabria is an Early Career Research Fellow in the department of Social Work in the School of Social Sciences.
Verusca is an interdisciplinary qualitative researcher working across the Social Sciences and Humanities. She worked as a community-based Oral Historian for 10 years before joining NTU.
Her PhD research explored the changing dimension of care practices from the mental hospital to community care through the application of participatory action research with oral history methodology. She engaged collaboratively with former patients and retired staff of the Nottingham mental hospitals.
She is currently module leader for the Person-centred Intervention module as part of the second year BA Hons in Health and Social Care.
Verusca regularly presents her research at national and international conferences. In 2020 she gave a virtual public lecture on the hidden heritage of asylums as part of the 'Difficult Heritage' international symposium, University of Oslo, Norway. In 2018 she presented a methodological paper at ‘Memory and Narration, Oral History Association conference, Jyväskylä University, Finland, June 2018. In the same year she presented a paper on reflexivity in sensitive research at the ‘Dangerous Oral Histories’, Oral History Society conference, Queen’s University, Belfast, Ireland. In 2017 she presented her findings from her PhD research on the oral history of the Nottingham mental hospitals at ‘The Body Politic: States in the History of Medicine and Health’, History of Medicine conference, Bucharest, Romania, 2017. In 2016 she presented her research on the role of social networks for recovery in the now-closed mental hospitals at the ‘Voices of Madness’ conference, Huddersfield University.
Career overview
Between 2005 and 2015 Verusca worked as an Oral History and Heritage Consultant in partnership with community groups, arts and voluntary organisations to collect, preserve and disseminate the hidden histories of marginalised groups.
Verusca was awarded a PhD in Social Sciences from Nottingham Trent University in 2020. She holds an MA in Life History Research from the University of Sussex, a BA Hons in History and Cultural Studies, and holds an Associate Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy.
Research areas
Verusca is currently researching the hidden heritage of the Nottingham mental hospitals as part of an external grant she was awarded by from the Heritage Lottery Fund. For more information, visit: mentalhealthcarememories.co.uk
Her research interests include social approaches to mental health, the history of psychiatry, mental health policy including community care, oral history theory and practice, participatory action research, feminist research methods, narrative research; heritage studies, the study of memory.
External activity
Co-convenor of NTU oral history network seminar series, which provides a forum for debate, supporting the exchange of knowledge and practice of oral history across NTU.
Secretary of Rushcliffe Mental Health Carers Group, Nottingham.
Co-convenor of the special interest group ‘Psycho-Social Therapies and Care Environments’ (PST&CE), an open forum for Oral History Society members, to explore the intersections, divergences, and shared worlds of oral history, psycho-social therapies, and therapeutic and care environments.
Trustee and a regional networker for the Oral History Society, a national organisation promoting best practice in the collection and preservation of oral history. Url: www.ohs.org.uk.
Steering Committee member for the oral history project: Lily’s Legacy: The Radical History and Heritage of Liberal Judaism in Britain. Url: www.lilyslegacyproject.com.
Publications
Book Chapters
Calabria, V., Bailey D. and Bowpitt, G. In press. More than bricks and mortar: meaningful care practices in the old state mental hospitals. In Voices in the History of Madness: Patient and Practitioner Perspectives, eds. Rob Ellis, Sarah Kendall and Steven J. Taylor. Palgrave Macmillan
Calabria, V. 2019. ‘Self-reflexivity in oral history research: the role of positionality and emotions’, in Voices of Illness: negotiating meaning and identity, Amsterdam: Brill Press.
Calabria, V. 2016. ‘Insider stories from the asylum: peer and staff-patient relationships’, in Joanna Davidson and Yomna Saber (eds) Narrating Illness: prospects and constraints, Oxford: Inter-Disciplinary Press.
Academic Articles
Palmer, D., Williams, L., White, S., Chenga, C., Calabria, V., Branch, D., Arundal, S., Storer, L., Ash, C., Cuthill, C. and Bezuayehu, H., 2009. ‘No one knows like we do’ — the narratives of mental health service users trained as researchers. Journal of Public Mental Health, 8(4), pp.18-28.
Book Reviews
Review of Kritsotaki, Despo; Long, Vicky; Smith, Matthew, eds. Preventing Mental Illness: Past, Present and Future. H-Disability, H-Net Reviews. 2020. Url: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=53921.
Review of Cryle, P. and Stephens, E., Normality: A Critical Genealogy. H-Disability, H-Net Reviews. 2019. Url: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=53926.
Review of Long, Vicky, Destigmatising Mental Illness. H-Disability, H-Net Reviews. 2017 Url: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showpdf.php?id=49735.