1. SS10 Immigration Project:
Oral History

2. Documenting History… History
History is written by the victors (Winston Churchill)
History

3. Weighing the medium of history/histories..
Credibility
Depth
Engagement
Type of information/experience transmitted
Durability
Spread ??

4. Oral history/histories… as a methodology
Character of Oral History
Methodological Complexities
Potential Contribution to Academic Disciplines

5. Oral history/histories… as a methodology
Character of Oral History
Recollection…. From memory
Personal interpretation of the event/history
Primary source…from the rawness of personal events
Made by people who are interviewed
Passed down through generations- can change over time as more people have input/interpret the stories
“Different perception of popular memory allowing communities to form their own self-conscious identity through recollection”
Use it to “capture, compare, and critique” the official versions, other versions

6. Oral history/histories… as a methodology
2. Methodological Complexities
Bad memories…accuracy
Influence/pressure on how to remember an event
People change… view on an event can change
Omission
Avoidance
Can be influenced by the interviewer

7. Oral history/histories… as a methodology
3. Potential Contribution to other Disciplines
Gives a lot of information- not just about the topic, but also about popular culture at the time, that person’s job/role…background information
Potential for a lot more detail– of the first hand accounts of what it was like to be there…and history we don’t already know.
Different points of view/opinions…gather them together to compare and contrast them.
Analyse the situation from a different point of view/perspective
Language- how people speak, accents, colloquialism, humour

8. Oral history/histories… as a methodology
Interviewer must listen “in stereo” .
Interviewer takes an active role.
Be aware of partial recollection, emotional bias or role specific censorship… this requires us to supplement and contextualize the interviews with further research, further interviews, and critical interpretation.
Transcript should not be an “edited interpretation of the interview but an accurate replicate of the spoken word, incorporating each pause, crutch word and use of vernacular language”
Know that we are part of a “reconstruc[tion of] a history of knowledge sensitive to the personal as well as the public”.