Face to Face
Oral History Meetings
NEW
ZEALAND
Oral History in
the 21st Century: Voices of Identity in a Globalised World
Conference of
the National Oral History Association of New Zealand, 2-3 April,
Rotorua, NZ
The theme of the
conference was designed to reflect the changes that individuals and
communities are facing in an increasingly globalized world, and had
two main streams – indigenous voices and identity and change.
Some of the
speakers discussed how Maori, Aboriginal and Pacific Island peoples
have used oral history to rediscover and assert their cultures and
identities, while others reflected on changes in identity using the
lenses of social movements, local history and individuals’ life
experiences.
Lorina Barker
from the University of New England in Australia was the first keynote
speaker. She has been combining family and community history by using
oral history interviews to seek to understand the history of her home
place, Weilmoringle in northern New South Wales. Lorina wants to
present her findings in ways which are culturally appropriate and
relevant to the members of her family and her community. She
demonstrated how she uses a journal to record her thoughts and ideas
as she is recording the interviews, and showed how she often presents
the material from the interviews as free verse. She also showed a
brief film about her father and uncles which she has made as part of
her research.
In the second
keynote address, Teresia Teaiwa, who teaches at Victoria University
of Wellington, spoke on research where she has been collecting oral
history interviews from three generations of Fijian women who have
served either in the British Army or the Fiji Military Forces. She
reminded us how important it is to convey the role of the interviewer
when such research is being written up because, as she put it, her
narrators’ analysis and her own analysis were in conversation
during the interviews. Teresia explained how she found it difficult
to do this until she realised that she wanted to write not ‘about’
or ‘for’, but ‘to’ the women she interviewed. She then read
from her work and showed how she had contextualised the women’s
lives in the events of the times about which they spoke, and analysed
what they were saying – and what they were not saying – by using
the ‘you’ form in presenting the material. It is a very vivid and
immediate way of presenting oral history material, and one which
reflects the intimacy of the original interview.
Both speakers
inspired the conference attendees with ideas about how they might present
their own research in future.
All the
presentations, which combined reports of projects and analysis of
material, were thought-provoking and interesting. We are looking
forward to publishing some of them in Oral History in New Zealand,
the association’s annual journal.
Megan Hutching
BRASIL
I
Seminar on Oral History in Health
- Federal University of São Paulo (UNIFESP)
The
Study Group on Oral History and Health (GEHOS) from the Centre for
History and Philosophy of Health Sciences (CeHFi), Federal University
of São Paulo (UNIFESP), Brazil, has held its first Seminar on Oral
History in Health on 25 November 2010. This meeting was aimed at
researchers, teachers and students interested in qualitative research
methods for health studies. Amongst those present were specialist
researchers from various parts of the country who are involved in the
use of oral history, as well as the GEHOS members of CeHFi-UNIFESP.
The concept of oral history, already widely recognised in the area of
humanities, is now starting to be applied with great success in the
field of health, as publications in Latin America and Europe have
demonstrated. This consists of qualitative research based on people’s
narratives. In the field of health studies, this research can also be
seen in a more humane approach to the relationship between
professionals and their patients.
More
information about the Study Group on Oral History and Health can be
found at the website: www.unifesp.br/centros/cehfi
Dante Marcello Claramonte
Gallian
Center for History and Philosophy
of
Health Sciences
(CeHFi)
Federal
University of São
Paulo/Paulista School
of Medicine
(EPM-UNIFESP)
Rua Botucatu 720, Edificio Leitao da Cunha,
1st Floor
The
Historical Museum of EPM
(Escola Paulista de
Medicina)
Phones: 55-11-55764258 and 55-11-55497584
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