Bulletin of the International Oral History Association
(published twice a year)

Volume 10, Number 2, 2002                

Starting Points

From the Editors

Last December, we received an email from a Chinese oral historian in Beijing inquiring about the upcoming conference in South Africa.  Earlier in the year, we received information from Saudi Arabia.  How did they find us?  We can only assume that the IOHA website and online newsletter were the catalysts.  Small but telling examples of how an online newsletter can help build a global network of oral historians.

As the 12th IOHA Conference approaches and as we near the end of a two-year cycle as co-editors, we hope that we have laid the groundwork to expand IOHA's online resources, communication, and networking capacity.  IOHA News can be a practical and valuable tool.  It brings examples from across the world of different ways to 'do' oral history, different ways of conceptualizing, theorizing, funding and organizing projects.  We learn about national, regional, local, and individual projects around memory, history, archival documentation, exhibitions, and social action.  Because we're all oral historians, the newsletter helps us learn, share, and become inspired by each other.

This is the fourth issue of the online IOHA News and we are very pleased with the results.  Thanks to our new Brazilian webmaster, Vicente Ferreira, and generous server space through the Fundacao Getulio Vargas, we now have a smooth process for posting the newsletter and accessing all previous numbers as well.  Pilar Gomez, in Barcelona, continues her steadfast facilitation of the Spanish translation process, and Victoria Pradilla continues to provide expert translation services. 

IOHA News online attests to our international expansion as a movement and association.  It also helps us track that growth.  Although we don't know the provenance of all the visits to the site, we hope that they include a healthy mix of members and newcomers, of those already connected and those lone oral historians out there in search of a scholarly community.  Looking back over the past three numbers, we've noted that we receive regular news from Brazil, Argentina, the U.S., Australia, Germany, the Netherlands, and the U.K..  We've also received occasional entries from Russia, Croatia, Greece, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, Turkey, Spain, Italy, Austria, Slovenia, Hungary, and France.  The upcoming conference in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa, will bring together first-time participants from Nigeria, Kenya, Tanzania, Egypt, Congo, Botswana, Zimbabwe, and South Africa.  As we rotate the conferences from continent to continent, the international movement of oral history grows.  Ideally, we would like to receive regular news and contributions from all these countries and more! 

The success of IOHA News and its networking capacity is entirely dependent on you, its readers and contributors.  We urge you to send regularly your conference news and reports, digests of interesting projects, whether individual or national, and to spread the word!  Not everyone can come to the conferences, but almost everyone can now log onto the website and join in the virtual conversation and community of oral historians around the world. 

We would love to hear from you, to know whether  fyou'veound the newsletter useful.  If so, how? Has it enabled you to contact other oral historians and advance your own work in any way? Are there new sections that you would like to see added?  We look forward to your contributions and feedback, and to building a vibrant practice of online communication and exchange for oral historians worldwide.

Rina Benmayor and Joanna Bornat
Co-editors

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From the IOHA Conference

IOHA - SOUTH AFRICA. THE POWER OF ORAL HISTORY: MEMORY, HEALING AND DEVELOPMENT. XII International Oral History Conference

There are less than two months to go until the twelfth International Oral History Conference in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa. The preparations for the conference are on full steam and many exciting events have been organized from the 24th until the 27th of June, 2002.

One hundred sixty five (165) papers have been accepted and submission is now closed. The papers will be presented in a form of a book and a CD. The list of the papers' authors and their email addresses can be located on the Conference website (http://www.hs.unp.ac.za). Thank you to all the delegates who submitted papers.

It is a great privilege to have the first African International Oral History Conference and it was essential to have the work of African historians taken into account. With great thanks to IOHA, the American Oral History Association, the National Research Foundation of South Africa and a private donor, 11 delegates from Africa have been sponsored to attend. The delegates from Nigeria, Kenya, Tanzania, Egypt, Congo, Botswana and Zimbabwe will be subsidized for their trip, accommodation and for their registration fee. A further 15 South Africans shall be subsidized for their registration fee. There will be a great turn out of delegates from Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, North America, United Kingdom, Turkey and South Africa.

On the afternoon of Wednesday the 26th of June, various cultural events will be organized. There shall be a tour of an African township called Mphophomeni and sites such as Gandhi and Mandela's arrest memorials. A visit to a game reserve where one can experience the African wildlife is also on offer. Earlier in the proceedings the delegates will be exposed to a local play at the University of Natal's Hexagon Theater as well as Zulu singing performed by two local bands and a storytelling event. We look forward to meeting the delegates and we hope your journey will be a safe one.

Philippe Denis, James Worthington and the local organizing committee, Pietermaritzburg, South Africa


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Words and Silences

Annual Journal in English and Spanish of the International Oral History Association

Call for Contributions
The editors of the International Oral History Association's journal, Words and Silences, invite contributions in the following categories.

Current Issues: Reflective, analytical articles of 500 to 2000 words on current topical issues, problems, and challenges in collecting, archiving, teaching, presenting and analyzing of oral history, with a particular emphasis on strategies and approaches to address these issues. These can be practical, methodological, or intellectual issues. Articles should be analytical, fully referenced, and focus specific discussions under broader headings. Examples of broader headings might include:

•    oral history and public history
•    the closure of oral history archives
•    oral history and the internet
•    new digital equipment
•    specific ethical dilemmas
•    oral history and indigenous peoples
•    sound archive management

(Please Note: Reports and news of oral history projects, archives, and other current activities should be sent to IOHA News)

National  Trends: 500 to 750 word highlights of oral history debates and trends in different countries. The editors would appreciate advice about who should be contacted in each country to write the reviews.
(Please Note: Conference announcements, reports, and other time specific material should be sent to IOHA News)

Oral History Journals: Substantive narrative assessments of the contents of journal issues published in the last twelve months.

Please send contributions, preferably as attachments in RTF format to:

Janis Wilton (English contributions): jwilton@metz.une.edu.au
Antonio Montenegro (Spanish contributions): antoniomontenegr@hotmail.com

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The World of Words

Future Conferences and Meetings

GREAT BRITAIN

SITUATED KNOWLEDGES: CONSUMPTION, PRODUCTION AND IDENTITY IN A GLOBAL CONTEXT.
3-5 September 2002, Design History Society Annual Conference, University of Wales, Aberystwyth.

The aim of the conference is to accommodate a wide range of topics that are of current concern in design history. The theme encourages an interdisciplinary approach that welcomes the way design history has opened out to encompass a longer historical period and to address the interface between the industrial and developing worlds. Material cultures is an essential aspect of creating distinction and identities which have become so important as an antidote to the homogenizing effects of modern culture. Subjects might include design, mass production, craft and display in museums, exhibitions or the domestic context.

For more information contact the conference administrator, Belinda Marking, School of Art, Buarth Mawer, University of Wales Aberystwyth, SY23 1NE, tel 01970 622460, email bjm@aber.ac.uk.

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SWEDEN

BURMA-MYANMAR RESEARCH and its Implications for Scholars and Policy makers
21-25 September 2002, Gothenburg, Sweden. 

This will be the First Collaborative International Conference of the Burma Studies Group (BSG), in conjunction with the International Institute for Asian Studies (IIAS), the Nordic Institute of Asian Studies (NIAS), and the Centre for Asian Studies (CEAS), Gothenburg University. Sponsored by Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA) and Nordic Academy for Advanced Studies (NorFA - Nordisk Forskerutdanningsakademi).

Given the increased scholarly attention to Burma-Myanmar over the past twenty years, this is an opportune moment to start pooling academic expertise and bring fresh academic perspectives to the study of Burma-Myanmar.  It is an opportunity to demonstrate the breadth of current scholarship across all fields of study internationally.

With few available outlets for new scholarship on Burma since the country reopened after a long period of closure, there has been little opportunity for a new generation of scholars to present their findings. Scholarship by Burmese-Myanma(r) nationals has also been underrepresented internationally. In light of these problems, the conference aims to:

• Bring attention to recent scholarship on Burma-Myanmar, especially that of younger academics and of Burmese/Myanmar scholars;
• Foster wherever possible constructive dialogue among scholars from Burma-Myanmar and the international community;
• Establish fresh comparative perspectives with other countries in transition, including Asia and Eastern Europe;
• Strive to publish the proceedings from the conference.
  

Though first and foremost an academic conference, proposals are also entertained for creating opportunities to:

• Present policy papers;
• Enable funding agencies and NGOs to meet suitably qualified  academics; 
• Establish a more enduring international structure that permits co-ordination of regular international academic exchanges on Burma-Myanmar, including the production of a database, an international directory of contacts, the organization of international conferences and the international co-ordination of publishing ventures.

For more information, visit the conference homepage:
http://www.therai.org.uk/anthcal/myanmarburma2002.html
Events:
http://www.therai.org.uk/anthcal/myanmarburma2002events.html
Registration form:
http://www.therai.org.uk/anthcal/myanmarburma2002preregister.html

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UNITED STATES

GLOBAL LINKAGES: THE INTERNATIONALIZATION OF EVERYDAY LIFE
Oral History Association Annual Meeting, 23-27 October 2002, San Diego, California.

The San Diego conference will include a diverse array of papers on the wide range of ways that oral history is responding to and documenting globalization in all its aspects.  Papers deal with the cultural, artistic, social, political and economic effects of the internationalization of everyday life.  With participants from a diverse mix of countries and communities and representing many different political persuasions, this conference promises to be a site of scintillating discussion. George Lipsitz will be the featured speaker at the awards luncheon and Mike Frisch will be leading a plenary session that looks at oral history in film.  Workshops on oral history and the creative arts, education, and diversity issues are also planned.

The conference will take full advantage of its locale. Preliminary plans for tours include visits to Barrio Logan and to Chicano Park; to Mission San Luis Rey and to Balboa Park (home to eighty-five performing arts and international culture organizations); and to Oldtown San Diego, in exploration of the cultural roots of this border city.  In addition, San Diego is home to the San Diego Wild Animal Park and the San Diego Zoo, to the Victorian-style Hotel del Coronado and Gaslamp Historical Quarter.  The conference hotel is located on a convenient trolley line and getting around the city is easy.

We hope that the OHA membership and interested friends will take full advantage of this wonderful opportunity to discover San Diego and to debate and discuss together the ways in which oral history is documenting and exploring the internationalization of everyday life.  For more information please visit http://www.dickinson.edu/oha/sandiego02.html

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FRANCE
HUMOUR AS SELF-DEFINITION
Universite de Bourgogne, 26-28 March, 2003

This conference will address the question of humour in life writing and, more particularly, the use of humour as self-construction. It is one of a series of conferences devoted to life writing that have been held at the University of Burgundy since 1997. It will also aim to consider the notion of humour as part of a common cultural heritage. Papers will thus be welcome both on individual works and on texts or works representing a community. Can humour be considered as a form of heritage? How does humour enable a person or a group of people to build or transmit a heritage?

Papers will concern texts belonging to the category of life writing ( diaries, letters, notebooks), but part of the conference will be reserved for papers concerned with the public representation of the self in all art forms.

The conference  aims at a multi-disciplinary approach to the subject. Papers will therefore be welcome from a wide range of specialists.

For more information contact Sylvie Crinquand, UFR Langues et Communication, 2, Bd. Gabriel, 21000 Dijon, France, email:  Sylvie.Crinquand@u-bourgogne.fr

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SPAIN
FIRST CONFERENCE ON EDUCATION AND ARCHIVES
5-7 September, 2002, Barcelona

The conference  is coordinated  by the Institut de Ciències  de l’Educació de  la Universitat de Barcelona with the support of other institutions  and archives.

The objectives are to:

• Analyse the interactive models between educational centres and archives in several European countries.
  
• Foster communication and analysis between archives and educational centres  in Catalonia in order to become familiar with didactic experiences and archives resources.
  
• Make proposals for the characteristics of  archive services, based on the reflection of teachers and archive specialists.
  

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From Page to Mouth

New Projects

ARGENTINA
ORAL HISTORY PROGRAM OF THE HISTORICAL INSTITUTE OF THE CITY OF BUENOS AIRES

The mission of the Historical Institute of the City of Buenos Aires (under the city's Ministry of Culture) is to research, advise, and disseminate the history of the city and to preserve its documentary archive.  The Institute's work not only recovers, interprets and preserves the city's past but also sponsors cultural activities to enable neighborhood residents to link past, present and future.

The Institute has an historical Archive, a specialized Library on the City of Buenos Aires, a Publications department, and a Research department, where the Oral History Program is housed.

The Oral History Program develops workshops, publishes workshop videotapes, edits a quarterly journal, Voces Recobradas (Recovered Voices).  It also publishes Oral History Notes (4th edition) on the uses and methodologies of oral history, geared to Social Science students and to beginning oral historians.  The Program also organizes national conferences on Oral History. Currently, the Program is engaged in three large oral history projects:

Emergency Settlements:

Emergency settlements are poor neighborhoods that have arisen throughout Buenos Aires and have met with expected resistance and discrimination.  On the official maps, these areas are designated as city-owned properties.  They are identified by number, despite the fact that residents have given their settlements names which are popularly used.  The history of occupation, settlement and symbolic claiming of these spaces is marked by military coups and forced removal and repopulating of the areas.  Although implicated in national politics, these events mark 'befores' and 'afters' in the history of the settlements,

Reconstruction of Local History:

Reconstruction of local history continues, this time with a focus on Social Works agencies for retirees and the elderly.  Social Works are public institutions, funded through public and private monies, that offer medical services and to a lesser extent, cultural activities.  Although the recovery project follows our standard oral history workshop format, by virtue of the population involved, this project brings particular issues to the fore, especially regarding the production of memory and the analysis and interpretation of findings.  These issues include aging, the role that the aging play in today's society, physical space and its representation in the construction of memory and its narratives, institutional presence, the selection of topics, the role of the historian-workshop leader, etc.

The Commission Pro-monument to the Victims of State Terrorism.

This project focuses on the last military dictatorship (1976-83), known as the 'Process of National Reorganization'.  With the return to democracy in Argentina, several initiatives have emerged to record the memory of the last and most brutal of Argentina's dictatorships.  These efforts revolve around the significance of place.  The recovery effort has sparked controversy over the appropriation of collective memory.  The current project involves an initiative to build a monument comprised of several sculptures by the Rio de la Plata (Plata River), to give homage to those who were detained, disappeared, and murdered by State Terrorism.  Our project seeks to engage in this reconstruction via alternative tools, through questions about places, objects, words and actions, and other manifestations of collective memory.

Liliana Barela, Director, Historical Institute of the City of Buenos Aires
Mercedes Miguez, Oral History Program Coordinator.

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Archive Stories

UNITED KINGDOM
EAST MIDLANDS ORAL HISTORY ARCHIVE

It is just over a year now since the East Midlands Oral History Archive (EMOHA) was established, so an update on its progress so far might be timely. The project is funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund to establish the first large-scale archive of oral history recordings for Leicestershire & Rutland, and is a partnership between the Centre for Urban History at the University of Leicester (where it is based), the Record Office for Leicestershire, Leicester and Rutland (ROLLR), and Leicester City Museums and Library Services. The project has seven staff, three full-time and four part-time, including a cataloguer, two outreach staff, an education officer, technical officer, and clerical support.

Hundreds of existing oral history recordings have been retrieved so far, and are now being accessioned, copied and deposited in the Record Office. They include around 500 recordings made in the 1980s by the original Leicester Oral History Archive; over 130 interviews from the former Mantle Oral History Archive at Coalville, and around 200 from the Community History archive (formerly the Leicester Living History Unit) at Leicester City Libraries. In addition to these large collections, smaller quantities of recordings have also been deposited by individuals and local  organizationssuch as historical societies. We expect new recordings done during the lifetime of the project to bring the final total to over 2000; and to this will also be added the sound archive of BBC Radio Leicester, amounting to a similar number of tapes of programmes covering the whole range of local broadcasting. 

An electronic catalogue of the archive is being developed with support from the University's Computer Centre and the National Sound Archive at the British Library, and will soon be available on our website at www.le.ac.uk/emoha. The cataloguing is very time-consuming work which will continue throughout the life of the project, but the accessibility of the recordings will be infinitely improved as it progresses.

We have also been experimenting with putting sound on the website. Audio versions of our quarterly Newsletters are already available there, and extracts from recorded interviews will shortly be added in a new section on the local hosiery industry. Feedback from users of the site has been very positive, but we are constantly updating and adding to it to encourage more ëvisitsí. A great deal of effort has gone into ensuring that both the website and other EMOHA services are as accessible as possible to disabled people and others with special needs. 

We are also promoting oral history to schools and adult learners, both through educational resources, termly bulletins, and pilot projects which may provide models for future activities. For instance, with support from EMOHA, adults on a local history course at Shaftesbury Junior School in Leicester are being interviewed by children from the school as part of their National Curriculum History work, with the aim of producing a joint history of the West End of Leicester. Funding from Leicester Adult Education  College'sëLiveAgeí project is also enabling us to conduct a small number of interviews with Asian elders in Gujarati, their first language, and to explore related issues around transcription and translation ñ as well as encouraging the interviewees to become informal ëeducatorsí in their own right. In May, we will be launching a CD of edited memories of toys and games, with supporting materials, for primary schools, and this will also go on sale to the general public. 

Well over 1000 people have already attended talks and training workshops provided by EMOHA, ranging from community groups to local historical and heritage societies, museums and students, both in Leicestershire & Rutland and in other areas of the East Midlands. By providing practical training in oral history techniques, we aim to equip others with the confidence and the skills to do their own interviewing, and to generate additional material which in due course will be added to our own or other archives in the region. This is in addition to the new interviews being carried out by EMOHA staff themselves, mainly around the themes of work, leisure, migration, and ësignificantí events of the 20th century.

Things that sound simple enough in a Lottery bid are often more complex in practice, and we've encountered not a few ëchallengesí in the course of this first year. Nevertheless, progress has been good, and our enthusiasm and commitment to the project remain undimmed. Keep in touch with developments through the website ñ or email us for more information on emoha@le.ac.uk.

Cynthia Brown - Project Manager - East Midlands Oral History Archive

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From Mouth to Page

Books

FALLEN WALLS: VOICES FROM THE CELLS THAT HELD MANDELA AND HAVEL

Straddling two continents and two hemispheres, this collection of prison writings compares and contrasts the political struggles that gave birth to two vibrant new democracies of the 21st century: South Africa and the Czech Republic. The triumph of decades of suffering endured by the ordinary citizens of these two small yet significant countries is symbolized by two extraordinary leaders, Nelson Mandela and Vaclav Havel.

As they stride the modern world like two colossi, the startling moral rectitude of these two men acts as a beacon at  the cusp of a new century which seems, increasingly, to have lost its way. Yet Mandela and Havel urge us all to acknowledge the role played by ordinary men and women in effecting freedom and justice.

Havel laments the fact that the voices of heroes of recent history who fought against oppression  are slowly fading, as the details of their lives slip from human memory, while Mandela urges us all to remember  'the collective  cry of conquest  over the efforts of oppression to destroy the human spirit'.

And so, the authors have recorded three voices from the apartheid era cells of Robben Island - Joseph Mati, Johnson Mgabela, Monde Mkunqwana - and three voices from communist era prisons in Czechoslovakia -  Jiri Mesicki, Lola Skodova and Jiri Stransky.  Each of these stories is a unique expression of the feelings, thoughts and daily experiences of victims of oppression, giving substance and resonance to the human suffering that continues to plague our times.

There are striking similarities, as well as differences between the two sets of stories that are informed by the incongruities of the Cold War. On a personal level, the tales from Robben Island are characterized by an absence of bitterness and thoughts of revenge, while a sense of bleak isolation and lingering bitterness pervades those from the Czechoslovakian prisons and labour camps. The buoyant tone of triumph of the South Africans is balanced by the darker, more sceptical mood of the Czechs.

In an age that teeters so precariously between hope and despair, the narratives of six prisoners of conscience contained in this book remind us not only of what we are, but also of what we may become. The reader is privy not only to the banality and brutality of evil, but also to the stark simplicity of human goodness.

In a timeous  warning against  complacency, Vaclav Havel states in his Foreword to Fallen Walls' the authors remind us anew of the price that is so often paid for freedom and democracy'.

Published by Lidove Noviny Publishers (with the Robben Island Museum) in hardcover and available from the authors (Jan K. Coetzee, Rhodes University, email: j.k.coetzee@ru.ac.za).  Price Euro 20 or US$19.

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Journals
   
RECOVERED VOICES/VOCES RECOBRADAS is a quarterly journal of oral history published by the Historical Institute of the City of Buenos Aires.  The journal began five years ago.  It includes two regular sections: 'Theoretical Notes', focusing on methodological issues and reflections, and 'Echoes of the Seventies',  publishing research on this very conflictive and ideologically rich decade.  The contents of the last three numbers are cited here (the latest number is currently in production):

No. 10:  Various articles reflect on the anniversary of the last military dictatorship, known as 'The Process of National Reorganization' (1976-1983).

 

No. 11:  A reprint by popular demand of 'The Century We Created'. An oral history recovery project of the Historical Institute, this research captures the collective memory of the 20th century of different neighborhoods of Buenos Aires.

 

No. 12:  More varied than the previous numbers, this issue includes articles on several research projects and an interview with Marieta de Moraes Ferreira and Robert Perks at the 5th National Oral History Conference, sponsored by the Institute, the University of Buenos Aires, and the National Office for Patrimony, Museums, and Art.

 

ORAL HISTORY  JOURNAL OF THE ORAL HISTORY SOCIETY
VOL.30, 1 (Spring 2002): Women’s Narratives of Resistance
Published by the Oral History Society , c/o Department of History, University
of Essex, Colchester, Essex CO4 3SQ
http://www. oralhistory.org.uk

CONTENTS

News   
Future meetings/Current British Work//Letter to the Editors/Obituary: Theo Barker 1923-2001/News from Abroad

Articles
‘A Man’s Job?’ Gender issues and the role of mental health welfare officers, 1948-1970, Sheena Rolph, Jan Walmsley and Dorothy Atkinson
‘I’m going to England’: Women’s narratives of leaving Ireland in the 1930s, Louise Ryan
Australian women’s stories of work and play, Janice Newton
‘Until death do us part?’: Marriage, Divorce and the Indian woman in Trinidad, Shaheeda Hosein
More than earnest diligence: the academic performance of female undergraduates at an elite British University, Joanna Norland

Public History
What  is public history? Publics and their pasts, meanings and practices, Jill Liddington
Reviews

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Put it in Writing

IOHA Membership Details

The International Oral History Association (IOHA) was formally constituted in June 1996 at the IXth International Oral History Conference in Goteborg, Sweden. The Association provides a forum for oral historians around the world, in order to foster international communication and cooperation and a better understanding of the nature and value of oral history. 

Benefits of membership include:

• concessionary rates for the biennial international oral history conferences;
• copies of Words and Silences, the annual, bilingual (English and Spanish) Journal of the IOHA (containing oral history articles, an index of oral history journals from around the world, special items and commentaries on oral history issues);
• access to the IOHA home page on the world wide web;
• access to IOHA News, the on-line newsletter of the Association;
• voting rights at the Association's General Meetings and Council elections;
• active participation in the international community of oral historians.

Membership is open to any individual or institution supporting the aims and objectives of the Association. The Association is governed by a Council elected at the General Meeting of the biennial international oral history conference. The President of the Association is Marieta de Moraes Ferreira from Brazil and current Council members come from Australia, Brazil, England, Germany, New Zealand, South Africa, Spain, Sudan, Turkey and the United States.

For membership forms, go to Membership on the IOHA website.  For enquiries e-mail the Association's treasurer
Almut Leh (almut.leh@fernuni-hagen.de ).
Fees for two-year membership (July 2000 - June 2002)

Individuals:    46 Euros
Institutions:    92 Euros
Students:     23 Euros

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IOHA News Guidelines and Deadlines:

Copy  is preferred as Microsoft Word attachment.
Images and illustrations should be scanned at 72dpi, and sent in jpg or pic formats. 
Send via e-mail to both co-editors:
Joanna Bornat:     j.bornat@open.ac.uk
Rina Benmayor:   Rina_Benmayor@csumb.edu

Maximum Length:

• Future conferences, meetings, and other announcements ñ 250 words
• Conference reports   500 words
• Archive News   500 words
• New Projects   1000 words

Spring issue: copy assembled in October and November ready for Spanish translation by 1 December. On website by end of January.

Autumn issue: copy assembled in March and April ready for Spanish translation by  1 May.  On website by end of June.

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