For 2017, Prof. Sitas has set the challenge of finding primary and secondary source materials that can give depth and detail to this journey – to the lives of the individual man and woman travelling these routes, and to the economic, cultural and political worlds that shape their lives along the way. Download the document here.

Meeting the challenge involves finding song texts, archaeological evidence, documentary records, historical analyses and all other kinds of material relevant to aspects of their journey that can contribute to building a central knowledge archive for the RAA Project, and help to shape the imagined journey that will be the subject of the performance.

The present document is a simple tool for a) separating the imagined journey into its constituent parts; b) suggesting some of the lines of enquiry, the questions, that might be worth investigating in relation to each part; c) listing some readings that could be useful starting points for further research.

The tool itself should be enriched by further questions and research directions added to it by each researcher who takes up the challenge.

To make this a properly shared endeavour, researchers are asked to send in materials discovered (the texts/images/audio files themselves, or bibliographic details for them) throughout the year; and to add suggestions for expanding and shaping the directions of the research relating to specific parts of the journey. Updates of this document will be distributed as often as there are new ideas and materials to share.

All contributions to the document, and any new materials found, should be sent directly to: Rhoda Isaacs.