About

About the Museum

The Mix-d: Museum was founded in 2012 as a means to share more widely and permanently the findings of small British Academy-funded research project undertaken in 2007 by Drs Chamion Caballero and Peter Aspinall into official accounts and firsthand experiences of racial mixing in 20th century Britain. The project identified a range of material from national and local archives, including official documents, autobiographical recordings and photos and film materials, which furthered our understanding of how social perceptions of racial mixing and mixedness emerged during this period and the effect they had on the lives of mixed race people, couples and families themselves, as well as their place in shaping contemporary ideas and experiences. The findings inspired and formed the foundation of the critically acclaimed BBC2 series Mixed Britannia (2011) and are further explored in the book Mixed Race Britain in The Twentieth Century (2018) published by Palgrave Macmillan.

As part of their commitment to share the findings with an audience outside academia, in 2012 Drs Caballero and Aspinall partnered with Bradley Lincoln of the social enterprise Mix-d: and web designer Stephen Ireland of Ivyparkmedia to create a trial digital archive showcasing the material we had collected. With the support of a small grant from the Arts and Humanities Research Council, the ‘Mix-d: Museum’ was formed and has proved a resounding success, acting as a well-used resource to visitors from 180 countries.

In our next stage - Amplifying the Mix-d: Museum – we are seeking to transition the Museum from a pilot website to an interactive and sustainable online museum, providing digital exhibitions, publications and archival services that build on our aim of contributing to uncovering of the often unknown or overlooked history of the experiences of minority ethnic communities in Britain, including those who were in or from mixed race families.