Dissertation Lecture, Week 3, Term 1

Oral History

Dissertation lecture, week 3, term 1

Dan Branch

Introduction

General reminder: need to be getting idea of topics, questions & supervisors. If you’ve not been to speak to your likely supervisor, do so in their office hours very soon and certainly before reading week.

Remember “All history was at first oral (Samuel Johnson, 1773).” Much of what we often think of as written sources are in fact based on oral testimony. Although this lecture will obviously give particular attention to basic questions of interviewing, using testimony and other matters, such as ethics, there is much that will be said of much wider applicability.

Part I: The challenges of oral history

In this section we’ll consider the way in which oral history has been used effectively by historians and some of the challenges that the methodology poses.

Why oral history?

·  To study the act of memory; what is remembered, what is not remembered and why?

o  Rumour and misunderstanding as important as accurate recollection.

·  To study history missing from the archives:

o  Marginalised groups and themes (‘history from below’)

o  Elites

o  The everyday – it is the exceptional and extraordinary that is often recorded in the archives; oral testimony provides one way to study the past as lived.

o  Continuity

Challenges of oral history

·  Intellectual

o  Memory

·  Practical

o  The challenge of the interview

§  See link to Warwick-based and externally based training material.

·  Resources (time and money)

Part II: The interview

In this section, I’ll discuss (from sometimes bitter personal experience) some of the things to consider about setting up, carrying out and storing the material gathered in interviews. Although directly relevant to those interested in doing interview as part of their dissertation, this section poses questions that you should ask of interview transcripts and other written sources derived from oral testimony that you come across.

Before the interview

·  Ethics

o  See link at end of this set of notes for link to the department’s ethics policy and to the form that needs completion.

·  Research

o  All sources work best in conversation with other sources; do your homework.

·  Identifying subjects

o  How and for what purpose?

During the interview

·  Technology

·  Setting

·  Structure

·  Power

o  Gender, class, generation.

o  Awareness of the signals that fact of interviewing transmits to the interviewee and consideration of that on the testimony provided.

After the interview

·  Transcription

·  Communication with interviewees

·  Storage and preservation

o  Organisation matters!

Part III: Writing with oral testimony

·  Let the sources speak, but not at expense of analysis and a critical reflection on the methodology.

Conclusion

·  Know your sources, written or oral.

·  Be creative but methodologically rigorous.

Useful links:

History Department’s ethics pages, including a link to the ethics form that needs to be completed by anyone who plans to use interviews in their dissertation research:

http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/history/intranet/ethics

Warwick’s Oral History Network ran a training programme for individuals interested in oral history. As well as hosting a wide range of information of interest, the network’s website includes a reading list for the training programme:

http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/cross_fac/ias/activities/supported/researchnetworks/oralhistory/training/

Institute of Historical Research’s ‘Making History’ project, including interviews with distinguished historians:

http://www.history.ac.uk/makinghistory/index.html

Oral History Society’s ‘Getting Started’ webpage:

http://www.oralhistory.org.uk/practical-advice.php

Oral History Association’s ‘Principles and Best Practice’ webpage:

http://www.oralhistory.org/about/principles-and-practices/

Further reading

For two excellent collections covering the practice and use of oral history see:

·  Robert Perks & Alistair Thomson, The Oral History Reader (various editions).

·  Donald Ritchie, The Oxford Handbook of Oral History (Oxford, Oxford University Press: 2011), e-book available through the library.

For an excellent example of oral history in practice by a Warwick historian, see:

·  Angela Davis, Modern Motherhood: Women and Family in England, c.1945-2000 (Manchester, Manchester University Press: 2012).

For two classic works (both available as e-books and in hard copy in the library) that demonstrate the fantastic potential of oral history and which discuss many of the questions covered in this lecture to greater effect see:

·  Alessandro Portelli, The Death of Luigi Trastulli, and Other Stories (Albany, SUNY Press: 1991).

·  Luise White, Speaking with Vampires: Rumor and History in Colonial Africa (Berkeley, University of California Press: 2000).

Although not available in the library, Kathleen Blee’s study of women in the Klu Klux Klan (Women of the Klan: Racism and Gender in the 1920s (Berkeley, University of California Press: 2nd edition, 2008)) is a great example of the potential for oral history. For a reflection on the challenges this project presented, Blee’s thoughts on which are of much wider relevance, see: Kathleen Blee, ‘Evidence, Empathy, and Ethics: Lessons from Oral Histories of the Klan,’ Journal of American History, 80, 2 (1993), 596-606. A version of this can be found in the Perks and Thomson collection noted above.

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