Major Areas of Work for elected officers and Council
members:
Functional Secretary: Organize and call all
Council meetings (online and face to face); work with the President to prepare
meeting agendas; prepare and circulate all minutes for approval; maintain the
online archive and all documents of the association. Administrative and organizational skills, as
well as facility with electronic collaboration sites (e.g. WebCT or Blackboard)
highly recommended.
Editor(s) of Words and Silences: Produce the annual journal;
call for, compile and edit articles; oversee translation; write editorials;
coordinate production (layout and printing) and distribution. Qualifications: editorial experience. If co-editors, one English, one Spanish
native speakers.
Co-editors IOHA
News (1 English/ 1 Spanish):
Produce a biannual bilingual online newsletter; call for, compile, and edit the
newsletter submissions; oversee translation; format the newsletter; write
editorials; coordinate with the Webmaster in Brazil. Qualifications: some editorial experience;
experience with word processing and electronic formatting; one of the coeditors
must be a native Spanish speaker and the other a native English speaker.
Biennial Conference
Committee (4 Council members/ 2 English and 2 Spanish): Support the local conference
organizing committee in reviewing proposals and give input on the conference
theme and program; provide any other conference program support that the local
organizing committee may need.
Qualifications: The committee
must include fluent Spanish and English speakers and readers with the ability
to give thematic input to program organization.
Membership Development (1
or 2 Council members): Plan and oversee membership
development campaigns; propose development plans; organize and maintain
outreach to membership. Qualifications:
good communication skills and ideas for development. This is a position that needs an
enthusiastic, creative, and proactive leader!
Scholarships and
Fundraising (3 Council members, one or two of which should be Spanish speaking): Fundraising:
Establish and pursue contacts with foundations and national organizations to
raise funds for scholarships and translation; write proposals; organize
fundraising campaigns among membership.
Scholarships: oversee application
process; select recipients; contact recipients regarding awards.
Appointed Positions
In addition to
the elected positions, Council is recommending the creation of the following
appointed positions in areas that require continuity beyond the 2-year cycle of
elections:
Translation Director: Organize and oversee all
translation needs of the Association, including written translation of
newsletter, journal, documents, announcements; work with the Conference
Organizing Committee to insure that simultaneous, sequential and written
translation/interpretation needs of Biennial Conferences are met. Qualifications: must be bilingual and have
some knowledge of professional standards of translation/interpretation.
Electronic Media Director: Maintenance, design and development
of the IOHA webpage, the Online Council Meeting site, and IOHA News. Support the design of online materials. Work closely with the IOHA Webmaster. Qualifications: some experience in web design
and electronic bulletin boards.
In addition, IOHA
seeks pro-bono translation/interpretation support from members. If you are able to translate into English or
Spanish and are willing to help translating short documents, articles, on a
one-time or short term basis, please contact the President.
Pro-bono translators (Spanish to English; English to Spanish) to translate newsletter
submissions, journal articles, conference programs, and occasional
documents. Qualifications: ability to
translate into one’s native language.
Pro-bono
interpreters (Spanish to English; English to Spanish) to
volunteer for sequential translation in conference sessions. Ability to translate into one’s native
language.
Back to Contents
The World of Words
Future Conferences and Meetings
Dancing with Memory: Oral History and its Audiences, 12-16 July, 2006, Sydney, Australia
The call for
papers for the 14th International Oral History Conference has attracted over
400 proposals from throughout the world from practitioners who wish to share
their ideas and experiences in applying oral history in a variety of different
ways: in museums, films, heritage studies, land rights claims, political
movements, archives, academic studies, performances, community projects and
much more. It promises to be one of the most exciting and lively of the oral history
conferences we have held to date, particularly since many of the papers will
address the conference theme and will be focused on oral history and its use in
different forms.
As well as the
main conference sessions there will be master classes on the day preceding the
conference, with cultural tours, performances and a conference dinner during
the time. As well, Sydney
and Australia
offer a range of sites, cultural institutions and places to visit and
experience.
The conference
website at http://www.une.edu.au/ioha2006
provides details about the conference program, facilities for registration
online, accommodation, and information about traveling to and in Australia
For email
enquiries: ioha2006@uts.edu.au
.
The following
websites provide a taste of what Sydney, New South Wales and Australia Tourism Australia: http://www.tourism.australia.com/;
Tourism NSW: http://www.sydneyaustralia.com/ (a multilingual site); City of Sydney: http://www.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/.
SCHOLARSHIPS: The IOHA has a scholarships fund to provide financial assistance to
attend the conference. Guidelines are
available on the IOHA website (http://www.ioha.fgv.br). To be eligible for a scholarship you must
have a paper or other proposal accepted for the program.
Janis Wilton, Rosie Block and Paula Hamilton, Local Organizing Committee
Back to Contents
NARRATING MEMORY: Oral History and
Life Stories Network, Sixth European Social Science History Conference, 22-25 March
2006, Amsterdam, Netherlands
The biannual European Social Science History Conference will be held
in Amsterdam in
2006. Since 1998, the Oral History and
Life Stories Network has met at each conference, and interest in it has been
steadily rising. Some seventy
participants gathered at the most recent network sessions. With the
International Oral History Association conference often meeting outside Europe, the Network has become a regular international
forum for European oral history and life story researchers.
For further
information contact Nanci Adler (N.Adler@niod.nl)
and Daniela Koleva (daniela@sclg.uni-sofia.bg).
Back to Contents
PASSION, PLAY AND THE EVERYDAY: Oral History and the Consumer Society: Annual Conference of the
Oral History Society with Sheffield Wednesday Football Club, 17-18 June 2006,
Hillsborough Stadium Conference Centre,
United Kingdom
This conference
will bring together people from oral history backgrounds to explore the
continuing impact of changing lifestyles, leisure and consumption in modern Britain. It will explore the nature and development of
the ‘consumer society’ through oral histories that address a range of areas,
including sport, food, fashion, music, media, tourism, heritage, health,
education and technology.
Papers are
invited which draw on current projects or recently completed work using oral
history and related methods. Papers are
welcome that deal with the issues of gender, sexuality, race and class,
exploring the links between production and consumption at a variety of scales
from the local to the global.
Deadline for
submission: 2 December 2005. Please send
an abstract of no more than 400 words to Belinda Waterman: Department of
History, University of Essex, Wivenhoe
Park, Colchester, CO4 3SQ.
Belinda@essex.ac.uk
Back to Contents
MIGRATIONS AND IDENTITY
FORMULATIONS: AFRICA-BRAZIL-CARIBBEAN: IV International Symposum of Caribbean
Studies, The Centre for Caribbean Studies in Brazil, September 29-October 1, 2006, Caldas Novas, Brazil.
The IV international symposium will be held in
Caldas Novas, the thermal springs city in the state of Goiás, Brazil.
Contributions focused on the use of oral sources are welcomed. Those interested
in the symposium can obtain further information at the website: www.fchf.ufg.br/caribebrasil, or
through e-mail: ocabrera@fchf.ufg.br,
or by phone: 55 (Brazil
code), 62 (Goiânia code), 35211457 (phone number).
Back to Contents
GENERATIONAL LINKS: Confronting the Past, Understanding the Present,
Planning the Future: Oral History Association Annual Meeting, October 25-29,
2006, Little Rock, Arkansas, United States
The Oral History Association invites proposals for papers and
presentations for its 2006 annual meeting to be held October 25-28, 2006 at the
Peabody Hotel in Little Rock,
Arkansas. In keeping with this year’s theme:
“Generational Links: Confronting the Past, Understanding the Present, Planning
the Future,” the meeting will focus special attention on oral history work with
groups and individuals who risked their lives to confront injustice in its many
forms, institutions and organizations, which promote understanding and oral
history projects, which encourage a just and diverse future. Presentations
based on interviews with individuals and groups, which focus on
intergenerational activities and actions, are especially welcome.
The committee invites proposals on international topics and
presentations that reflect on the process of oral history and the role of
theory in its practice. A variety of formats and presentation methods are
welcome, including traditional panels with chair and discussant, workshops, and
poster sessions, as well as media and performance-oriented sessions. The
committee particularly hopes to build the program around presentations in which
the audience may hear or see the actual voices and actions, which link the
past, present and future.
Please submit five copies of the proposal. For full sessions, submit
a title, a session abstract of not more than two pages, and a one-page vita or
resume for each participant. For individual proposals, submit a one-page
abstract and a one-page vita or resume of the presenter.
Each submission must be accompanied by a cover sheet, which can be
printed from the OHA Web site: www.dickinson.edu/oha.
Proposals should be postmarked by January 31, 2006. They may be submitted by
mail or fax.
No e-mail attachments will be accepted.
Please submit proposals to Madelyn Campbell,
Oral History Association, Dickinson
College, P. O. Box 1773, Carlisle,
PA 17013;
Telephone (717) 245-1036; Fax: (717) 245-1046.
Back to Contents
Face to Face
Conference and Association reports
ARGENTINA
VIIth National Meeting and Ist
International Oral History Conference
On October 13, 14 and 15 the VIIth
National Meeting and first International Oral History Conference of the Argentine Republic
was held in Buenos Aires
on the theme “Identity, Culture and Politics”. It was organized by the Historic
Institute of Buenos Aires (Undersecretary’s Office of Cultural Patrimony of the
City Government), the Oral History Program, and the Archive “Women’s Words and
Images of the Interdisciplinary Institute for Studies of Gender” (Philosophy
and Literature Faculty, University of Buenos Aires).
From left to right:
MA Liliana Barela (Director of the Historic Institute of Buenos
Aires), and plenary speaker Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui (Andean Oral
History Workshop, Bolivia).
Ninety-two research works were
presented, analysing different topics dealing with oral history application,
which were divided into Politics and Ideology, Space and Memory, Culture and
Identity, Migrations, Communications and Projects, Gender and Methodological
Reflections. The meeting was attended
by representatives from all over Argentina,
as well as researchers from Brazil,
Bolivia, Mexico, Paraguay,
and the United States,
confirming the international character of the event, a characteristic already
perceived in previous ones.
Since the Fifth Meeting in 2001, we
have offered workshops, which run simultaneously within the framework of the
scheduled activities. On this occasion, workshops dealing with “Oral Archives”, “Gender” and “Uses of Oral
History” were conducted. This kind of practice allows a restricted number of
participants who choose a workshop according to their interests, to study
specific topics in depth, as well as generating discussion, research, and work
on specialized bibliography. We also had distinguished speakers participating
in the workshops, among them, Daniel James (University of Indiana, USA) who
addressed the workshop on gender, and Virginia Aillón Soria (in charge of, up
to 2005, the Documentation Centre for Latin American Arts and Literature at the
Simón I. Patiño Work Space, Cedoal, Bolivia) in the workshop dealing with oral
archives. Gerardo Necoechea from Mexico (IOHA vice-president), was a plenary
speaker on the theme of “Points of View: Dialogs and Contexts of Oral History”,
and Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui from Bolivia (Andean Oral History
Workshop), offered a presentation on “Oral History and the Use of Images in
Social Research: A Bolivian Experience”.
We cannot avoid mentioning the
official launching during the meeting, on October 15, of the Oral History
Association of the Argentine Republic (AHORA). This was the appropriate setting
since the Association is the logical heir of these meetings that since 1993 have operated as mediators for the exchange of knowledge and
experiences, and creating a network that will now be supported by the
Association, which will initiate its future activities.
Liliana Barela
historiaoral_ihcba@buenosaires.gov.ar
Back to Contents
BRAZIL
Oral History in Brazil:
Creation of a New Website
The Brazilian Oral History
Association holds its national meetings every two years. The next will be held
in May 2006 in
Rio Branco, the capital of the state of Acre,
located in the Amazonian region, where the famous ecologist Chico Mendes was
murdered. In the years that we hold no national meetings, we conduct regional
meetings. We have divided Brazil
into five regions, each with a regional director of oral history. During 2005, a series of different
regional meetings were held, starting in May in the North Region, state of
Rondônia, with the IVth Oral History Meeting of the North. In August the IIIrd
Oral History Meeting of the South Region in Porto Alegre,
state of Rio Grande
do Sul. In September the Vth Oral History Meeting of the Northeast in São Luis, state of
Maranhão. Two were organized in November, the Centre-West Meeting in the city
of Pirinópolis, state of Goiás, and
finally the Southeast Meeting in Juiz de Fora, state of Minas Gerais.
These meetings draw an audience predominantly of historians, as well
as many university and postgraduate students. Anthropologists, sociologists,
educators and architects also attend. From 200 to 500 people usually take part
in these events, although the Vth Oral History Meeting of the Northeast
attracted the attendance of a thousand participants. A frequent practice in
these meetings is to offer short oral history courses, which take place every
day for two hours, and are very much frequented by the students. During the
Northeast meeting, fifteen short courses were offered on diverse topics related
to oral history.
I would also like to report on the first National Meeting of Oral
History on the theme “Uses and Expressions of Orality in Education”, and an International
Oral History Meeting with the theme “Orality and Memory Archives”, organized by
The Oral History Group and The Pedagogic Association for Social Work. The
latter took place in Bogotá,
Colombia, on
May 5-7, 2005. I attended the meeting, where I was able to observe the
development of oral history practice in Colombia. I also met with
colleagues from Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador,
Cuba, Venezuela and Panama. During the meeting, we
discussed the creation of a Latin American Oral History Association and established
a website to discuss this possibility: www.hola.pro.br
The aim of this website is to bring together everyone who is working
with oral history in Latin America and seeks
reciprocal knowledge, and who knows?
Perhaps in the future we will create a Latin American Oral History
Association. Do not miss visiting our
website!
Antonio Montenegro, Brazil
antoniomontenegro@hotmail.com
Oral Documentation Meeting
Concerned about the production of
oral sources in Brazil and other Latin American countries through academic
studies and projects, organizations, social and popular movements, and public
and private institutions, the Documentation Centre (CEDIC) of the Pontifical
Catholic University of São Paulo, as part of the organizing committee for the
VIth Archivology Conference of the MERCOSUR (VI CAM), will organize the first
Oral Documentation Meeting of the MERCOSUR.
By sharing with the Brazilian Oral
History Association mutual concerns regarding the conservation policies of oral
sources, and providing discussions dealing with the organization and
description procedures of oral documents kept in archives and Documentation and
Memory Centres, CEDIC sees the VI CAM as a new opportunity for interested
groups from the MERCOSUR countries to exchange information and tighten their bonds around this issue by discussing the current
reflections in the archives field. We
hope this process will spread all over Latin America.
Some of the sessions offered included: Oral documents
in preservation policies, October 18, 2005.
“Oral documents in preservation policies” – Ramón Alberch i Fugueras
(Archives System from Catalunya,
Spain).
“Oral documents, from production to preservation. A current concern”
– Yara Aun Khoury (Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo, Brazil).
“Oral memories from the exile: the
Argentine military dictatorship” – Alejandra Oberti
(Open Memory, Argentina).
“Tensions between cultural globalization and preservation policies
of oral documents in Chile”
– Sonia Montecinos Aguirre (University
of Chile, Chile).
Perspectives and challenges in the treatment of oral documents, October 19, 2005.
“Treatment of oral documents at the FIOCRUZ sound archive” –
Laurinda Rosa Maciel (Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, Brazil).
“Treatment of oral records at the CPDOC archive” – Verena Alberti
(Getulio Vargas Foundation, Brazil).
“Challenges in the application of the ISAD(G) to collections of oral
documents: the experiences of the CEDIC/PUC-SP Documentation Program” – Simone Silva Fernandes
(Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo, Brazil).
“Perspectives and challenges in the
treatment of oral documents in Uruguay”
– María Laura Bermúdez Gallinal (University of the Republic, Uruguay).
Further information about the VIth
Archivology Conference of the MERCOSUR can be found at: http://www.arqsp.org.br;
e-mail: congresso@arqsp.org.br
Yara Aun Khoury
yara@belk.com.br
Back to Contents
SOLAR Conference: A Few Considerations
During the VIIIth SOLAR Conference
held in Trinidad and Tobago
in 2002, professor Leopoldo Zea recommended holding the next meeting in Rio de Janeiro, a city
that held for him such good memories.
There, he and Professor Darcy
Ribeiro, then chancellor of the university, had created the Latin American
Society for the Study of Latin America and the Caribbean
(SOLAR). At the IXth SOLAR Conference, his
ideas were carried out. The conference was attended by 588 professors from the
Universities of Rio de Janeiro, the rest of Brazil, and abroad (Mexico,
Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Bolivia, Peru, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Trinidad and
Tobago, Cuba, United Estates, Poland, Russia, Spain, Japan, China and Africa),
as well as some representatives of the Guarani indigenous communities from
Bracuy, near Rio de Janeiro, and some students and others from the academic
community.
The conference paid homage to
Professor Leopoldo Zea, founder of SOLAR, who died on June 2004. The organizing
committee sponsored a panel with the participation of Professors Maria Elena
Rodríguez Ozan (Leopoldo Zea’s widow and current general coordinator of SOLAR),
Adalberto Santana, Alberto Saladino, Maria Teresa Toribio Brittes Lemos, Werner
Altman and Lancelot Cowie, the latter as president of SOLAR.
The program was not limited to
academic activities. There was also a cultural market and a Festival of the
Cosmic Race. The cultural market featured craftsmen from Rio
de Janeiro and the consulates from Latin American countries,
especially Peru and Bolivia, and a
sector of culinary art which offered typical meals at the Food Square. The cultural market also
featured an exhibition on Brazilian, Afrobrazilian, and indigenous art. Some
publishing houses from Rio de Janeiro
exhibited new books on topics addressed in the conference.
The conference met its expected
goals. It was a forum for discussion, debate and reflection on the issues
proposed in its program for the study of social, economic, political, and
cultural phenomena and processes that occur in the region. Through the
presented papers it was possible to examine and analyze the internal problems
of several countries and sub-regions of Latin America.
The discussions expanded the participants’ knowledge regarding Latin American
complexity through a broader exchange of experiences and a dialogue based on
solidarity and cooperation.
At the closing ceremony, Maria
Teresa Toribio Brittes Lemos, head Professor of Latin American History at
UERJ’s History Department, became president of the Latin American Society for
the Study of Latin America and the Caribbean (SOLAR) until 2006, when a new
president will be elected at the Xth Conference to be held in Cuba.
Maria Teresa Toribio Brittes Lemos
Rio de Janeiro State University
Back to Contents
COLOMBIA
Orality Conferences
From May 5-7 the city of Bogota,
Colombia, held an International Oral History Meeting organized around the theme
of “Orality and Memory Archives,” together with the first National Oral History
Meeting on the “Uses and Expressions of Orality in Education.” These events
were attended by nearly 300 researchers, students, community leaders and
teachers who interacted with 70
presenters who shared the results of their investigations and experiences in
classroom.
Roberto Sáenz and Alfredo
Molano.
The meetings were convened by the
Oral History Group, a member of the IOHA, together with the Pedagogic
Association for Social Work with the support of the Secretariat of Education of
Bogota, the Institute for Educational Research and Pedagogic Development
(IDEP), the Archive of Bogota, the National
Pedagogic University,
and other institutions. The wide and
varied national audience represented diverse ethnic groups, as well as regional
groups and academics from Colombia.
The complete list of participants and papers can be seen at: www.colectivohistoriaoral.org
On an international level, thirteen
researchers from across Latin America were present: Liliana Barela (Argentina),
Carlos Alves (Brazil), Silvia Rivera (Bolivia), Antonio Torres Montenegro
(Brazil/IOHA), Jose Antonio Vidal (Spain), Elizabeth Rodriguez (Cuba), Adolfo
Alban (Ecuador), Regina Beatriz Gimaraes Neto (Brazil), Marcela Ferrari
(Argentina), Rosa Maria Torres Hernandez (Mexico), Gladys Teresa Nino Sanchez
(Venezuela), Marcela Camargo y Panttaleon Garcia (Panama).
During the three-day meeting five
thematic lines where developed around several topics:
- Memory, oblivion, impunity and
political amnesia.
- Tradition, orality, testimonies, and
memory archives.
- Orality, memory, symbolic
representations and archives.
- City, memories and archives.
- Educational experiences regarding
memory, tradition and orality.
Besides the lectures and panels,
there were such additional activities as archives workshops, exhibitions, video
and documentary presentations, storytelling, publication releases,
performances, gallery of memory, and dances that gave recognition to the
practices carried out both inside and outside the classroom that use oral
sources.
After a long conversation it was
agreed to organize a new Latin American Meeting in Panama in 2007. This could be a new
opportunity to constitute a Latin American Oral History Association, for which
a large participation, deliberation and commitment will be needed. On a national level, these events offered an
opportunity to extend the debate and also highlighted the need to create Word
Funds within the Archive of Bogota and other archives of the country to
preserve and defend the collective memory.
Fabio Castro
www.colectivohistoriaoral.org
e-mail: colectivo@colectivohistoriaoral.org
Back to Contents
MEXICO
Orality and
Social Knowledge
At the beginning of the eighteenth
century, the Spanish Dominican priest Francisco Jiménez found a manuscript
written in Mayan Quiche language with characters from the Latin alphabet in
what is today the Guatemalan town of Santo
Tomás Chichicastenango. Popol Vuh was the title of the text written
around the middle of the sixteenth century by some member of this town, who had
been already taught by the Spanish. A close translation could be: “The Book of
the Community.” It summarizes in writing
the Quiche’s interpretation of the history of humanity and their own people, a
knowledge that had surely survived to those days through oral tradition.
Four hundred years later, in the
Mayan lands of the ancient Ah Kin Pech, a group of men and women gathered
together to exchange our own experiences about the history and life that has
been shared with us by people from different towns through oral tradition. And
thus, the fortified city of Campeche, located in
the Yucatan Peninsula
and one of the main ports of New Spain, which suffered several pirate attacks
during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, opened its doors to hold the
VIth International Oral History Conference, from June 8-10, 2005, in Mexico.
Orality
and social knowledge was the central theme of the meeting. This “social knowledge” referred
to such specific problems as localities, religion, environment and ecology,
youth and generations, health, academic life, oral sources, oral history, and
the teaching of history, migration, work, wars and revolutions, and finally
life stories. These topics were shared and discussed in eighteen panels at the
Autonomous University of Campeche. A key concern of the meeting related to the
creation and preservation of oral archives.
Master lectures were conducted by
Fabio Castro, from the National Pedagogic University of Colombia, and by Rina
Benmayor, from the United
States and president of the International
Oral History Association. Both made education their key topic. Fabio reflected on history teaching in elementary
and medium education schools, and how oral history can be a detonator of
interest for students of these grades. Rina shared her experiences concerning
the university training of oral historians. It is important to mention that
besides the Mexican researchers attending the meeting, there were also
registered colleagues from Argentina,
Brazil, Chile, Colombia,
Cuba, and the United States.
In addition, the Mexican Oral History Association held its business meeting to
elect a new board of directors. Mario Camarena Ocampo became president, and Ada
Marina Lara Meza vice-president.
I end this brief account with a
sentence borrowed from the Popol Vuh, transmitted orally by the ancient
Mayans and today dedicated to all of you: “Let them not face either the high or
low side of the road, let there be no blow in their presence; grant them good
roads, beautiful flat roads!”
Martha Beatríz Cahuich Campos
Marthabeatriz_@att.net.mx
Back to Contents
SOUTH AFRICA
The Second National South African Oral History Conference, Boksburg, Johannesburg, October 18-20, 2005, Launches the Oral
History Association of South
Africa (OHASA).
The second national South African oral
history conference, which met from 18 – 20 October 2005, in Boksburg, Johannesburg, was a
resounding success, made even more special by the long-awaited launch of OHASA.
The conference had 23 paper presenters and was attended by over one hundred
delegates. Attendees came from six universities; community projects; and
government departments, national and regional archives, and museums. The central theme of the conference was “The
Role of Oral History in Post-Apartheid South Africa.” Papers on the first day explored the impact
of apartheid on local/indigenous knowledge forms, political protest and forms
of violence, and how these have been remembered. The second day focused specifically on memory
and reconciliation, with papers exploring the work of the Truth and
Reconciliation Commission and the lessons oral historians can learn around the
interwoven issues of: validating and interpreting oral testimonies, healing,
restitution and archiving. On the third day papers explored oral and musical
performances, and projects such as the Mpophomeni Eco-Museum, memory-box work
with people living with HIV/Aids; and photography and oral history.
The formation
of the OHASA marked a significant moment in a long process. The idea of a South
African oral history association was initially raised in the 1990s but only
gained impetus with discussions amongst South African oral historians after the
IOHA conference in Istanbul
in 2000. The next stage was discussions during the IOHA conference in
Pietermaritzburg in 2002. By this point, there was clearly enthusiastic support
for the idea from oral historians but insufficient financial support. This
support emerged through the National Archives of South Africa, which hosted the
first South African oral history conference in Pretoria in 2004. During this conference an
interim committee was elected and, with financial support from the Department
of Arts and Culture, was able to draft a constitution, develop the first
newsletter, and assist with the conference program. The interim committee was
reelected as the first executive committee, which will serve for three years.
Its seven members represent six of South Africa’s nine regional
provinces. The committee has an additional ex-officio member from the National
Archives, given that it remains a strategic partner. While three provincial
associations exist, a key priority is to facilitate the setting-up of
associations in the remaining provinces. Given the complex ways oral history
practice interweaves with many disciplines, OHASA has decided to define itself
in broad terms: “The objective of the OHASA is to promote and facilitate the
recording, preservation, access, popularization and study of oral history in South Africa.
This includes poetry, music, oral praise, oral performance and oral
traditions.” While much work needs to be
done to ensure the future sustainability of OHASA, the dynamic commitment from
oral historians, related practitioners and institutional partners, gives considerable
grounds for optimism.
Sean
Field
sean@humanities.uct.ac.za
Back to Contents
SPAIN
A Timely and Necessary Meeting Regarding Oral and Visual Sources
On September 7-9, 2005, the Conference of Oral and Visual Sources: Historical Research and Pedagogic
Renewal took place in Iruña, Pamplona, Spain,
organized by the Institute of Economic and Social History Gerónimo de Uztariz,
the Icaria Federation (Fedicaria), the Seminar of Oral Sources from the
Complutense University of Madrid, and the Geography and History Department from
the Public University of Navarre. With sixty presenters and more than a hundred
participants, Iruña’s conference reestablished, at the right time, the long
tradition of Conferences on History and Oral Sources celebrated in Ávila
(1989-2000).
Its favorable timing corresponded
with the rising momentum in recovery studies of Spain’s historic memory, based to a
large extent in oral sources. The
conference held in Pamplona
was of singular importance as a meeting space for researchers and teachers of
history and sociology. It provided a
critical, updated reflection on the state of affairs in oral history, from
research and methodology to the relation between history and memory, and the
condition of oral sources and archives. The papers, discussion panels, and
workshops addressed these topics on the first two days. The third day dealt
with an issue no less important: the need to link oral history studies with
pedagogy and social sciences didactics.
This was expressed by displaying practical and concrete projects,
including a proposal to create a network of school teachers engaged with
critical pedagogic models based on the use of oral and visual sources.
A notable feature was the
international participation in the meeting between Spanish and Latin American
oral historians, particularly our Argentine and Mexican colleagues who are
conducting such attractive studies as those dealing with Mexican immigrant
populations in the United States or the oral history teaching experience in a
working neighbourhood threatened by the huge metropolis of Mexico City, to
mention a few examples. Debates were
encouraged by the constant participation of professor Giovanni Levi, one of the
main microhistory theorists. Apart from the discussion on historic subjectivity
and objectivity, the relations between history and memory were the theme of the
better part of the meeting. It could not
have been otherwise at a time when a wave of historiographical studies on the
Spanish civil war and the Franco regime coincides with an increasing presence
of memory--of the defeated, the forgotten, and those without voice--within the
mass media: the press, cinema, television, and books.
In short, it was a necessary
conference held at a particularly timely moment. It was able to combine theoretical
reflections with practical challenges.
It highlighted the complex link of history with the use of oral sources
and the resulting social, political and pedagogic implications.
Fernando Hernández Holgado
Gerónimo Urtáriz Institute, Pamplona, Spain
horto@jazzfree.com
Back to Contents
UNITED KINGDOM
USING THE WAR: Changing Memories of World War Two , 1-3 July 2005:
Annual Conference of the Oral History Society with King's College, London
The sixtieth anniversary of the end of the Second World War brought together in
London oral historians from across Europe, Asia, Oceania, and North and South
America to address the war’s legacy as recorded and measured through oral
history. Presentations were organized
into two major themes: “Remembering, Forgetting and Silences,” which explored
individual memories in relation to dominant discourses; and “Using Memories of
War,” which, included reminiscence as a therapeutic intervention and the ways
in which the media has shaped recollections of the war. Over 70 papers and poster sessions
filled the program.
Reflecting the international nature of the conference was the range of keynote
speakers from Australia, Germany, and Italy. Paula Hamilton, associate professor at
the University of Technology, in Sydney,
Australia,
opened the meeting with a talk on “Transforming memories: World War Two across
the generations.” She set the tone for
many of the sessions that would follow by discussing people’s dichotomous
desire to remember and to forget traumatic era.
She reviewed the public commemorations of the war and concluded that
television has been the most powerful instrument of the war’s memory. Andreas Kruse, director of
the Institute for Gerontology at the University
of Heidelberg, gave a
moving talk on “Guilt in the German history: How to transform moral guilt into
responsibility,” in which he discussed the testimonies of collective guilt even
among those who had attempted to resist the Nazi regime. Alessandro Portelli,
professor of American Literature at the University
of Rome, spoke on “Innocent victims of
liberating cannon: Remembering armed bombardment in Rome,” dealing with the question of how
memories cope with such contradictory situations as being bombed by one’s
liberators.
A wide-range of
sessions dealt with combatants and civilians, refugees, prisoners of war,
concentration camp inmates, childhood and inter-generational memories,
patriotism and public commemorations of wartime events. One recurring theme was the suppression of
memories, whether reflecting shame, self-defense, or a desire to get on with
one’s life in peacetime, and the ways in which interviewers need to be
sensitive to those concerns while assisting people to confront traumatic
memories when they are ready to do so.
The meeting took
place appropriately at Kings College, in London, in
a building that served as a wartime hospital, and whose faculty in its Institute of Psychiatry had treated World War II
soldiers suffering from post-combat disorders along with traumatized air-raid
casualties. In 2004 the college created
the King’s Centre for Military Health Research, which deals with war and
health, war and psychiatry, and personnel issues and social policy. The meeting adjourned less than a week before
terrorist bombings struck London’s
transportation lines, moving the conference’s themes from the realm of history
into the latest news, and reinforced their relevancy.
Don
Ritchie
oralhistorians@comcast.net
Back to Contents
From Page to Mouth
Oral History Projects
AUSTRALIA-SPAIN
The Spanish Heritage Foundation has
been working on a project on memory recovery of the Spanish emigration in Australia. The
project represents a special interest from at least three different aspects: 1)
an effort to strengthen the identity traits of the Spanish community; 2)
Australia is a multicultural country, and in this sense, the project aims to
situate the Spanish community in its due place within the construction of the
Australian nation; and 3) the initiative helps to transmit to the original
fatherland a migratory experience that has affected thousands of Spaniards.
Regarding this last issue, the work carried out by the First of May Foundation
plays an important role in promoting the Spanish Heritage Foundation project in
Spain, while at the same time it has incorporated into its archives in Madrid
more than fifty hours of audiovisual records containing life stories,
photographs, related press and other documentation available to researchers as
reference material.
Books: Memories of Migration,
a selection of papers presented at the Academic Seminar in Sydney, 1998. Published by I.
García in 1999. The Spanish Experience in Australia, edited by Carmen Castelo (Jamison Centre, A.C.T., Australia:
Spanish Heritage Foundation, 2000). The book has 39 stories and narrations of the experiences of Spaniards
in Australia,
and includes 150 pages with photographs, poems, and illustrations.
Activities: Oral History Project,
1997-1998; Spanish Film Festival, May 2000.
Spanish Heritage Foundation in Australia: P.O. Box 333,
Jamison Centre. Camberra ACT 261
Sergio Rodríguez, Spain
sergio_rodriguez_sanchez@hotmail.com
Back to Contents
CUBA
A Cuban Project for Memory
The Memory Program of the
Cultural Centre Pablo de la Torriente Brau,
an independent Cuban institution founded in 1996, is developing, by using the
new communication technologies and artistic creation, lines and spaces of
divulgation and debate related to memory, oral history and testimony based on
the historic and literary legacy of Pablo de la Torriente Brau (San
Juan Puerto Rico, 1901-Majadahonda, Madrid, 1936), one of the highest exponents
of Cuban journalism of the twentieth century. His narrative work of fiction,
representative of the Cuban vanguard, incorporated the richness of popular
speech and the witticism of humour in order to present vigorous and significant
human topics.
The main objective of this program
is to stimulate to promote the Cuban nation collective memory with the annual Memory Award,
which finances oral history research projects. This award is open to
journalists, sociologists, writers, historians and other Cuban specialists
interested in addressing, based on orality, different topics about the life and
culture of the country that will enhance the vision of identity, as well as the
social and cultural history of Cuba.
Since 1996 more than forty research projects have been awarded, from which ten
books have been published. They stand out not only for the variety and richness
of their topics, but also for the use of oral source as an essential tool.
Among them are: El canciller [The Chancellor] ,
by Manuel González Bello; Cuba’s Island of Dreams: Voices from
the Isle of Pines and Youth, by Jane MacManus; El rusito [The Little Russian] , by Víctor Joaquín Ortega; El rosario mágico de la
Novoa [The Magic Rosary of La Novoa] ,
by Mercedes Santos Moray; El polaquito [The Little Polish] ,
by Jorge Fuentes; Los niños de la Guerra de España [The
Children of the Spanish War] , by Roger González; Rescate del tiempo [The Rescue of Time] ,
by Armando Chávez; Camila y Camila [Camila and Camila] ,
by Mirta Yáñez; Como una memoria que dura. Cabildos, sociedades
y religions afrocubanas de Sagua la
Grande [Like a Memory that Lasts. Town Councils, Societies
and Afrocuban Religions of Sagua la
Grande] ,
by Silvina Testa, and La imaginación contra la norma. Ocho
enfoques sobre la República
de 1902 [The Imagination Against the Norm. Eight Approaches on the 1902
Republic] , by Julio César Guanche.
The finished research works are added to the
Word Fund, which contains more than 120 audiocassettes containing approximately
100 testimonies obtained by interviewers. This Word Fund, organized on computer
format, is available to scholars who are interested in its contents. Important
lines of action within the program are to encourage initiatives between
specialists and young creators from Cuba; to coordinate works and exchanges
with institutions within the island, and with academic and research centres
from other countries based on projects of common interest; as well as to link
specialists and creators from the areas of oral history and testimony with
international organizations and related projects in other countries.
The Centre’s collection has
considerably increased, creating something of extraordinary value. It provides information regarding the figure
of Pablo de la
Torriente Brau and his time, and the voices of the Cuban
veterans who fought in the Spanish Civil War, and also rescues and conserves
memory from the different spaces developed by this Cultural Centre, which is
located in the historic sector of the Old Havana, and is included in the World
Heritage list. Among these projects it is worth mentioning the publishing house La Memoria,
with its collections Pablo’s Words, Colloquiums and
Testimonies, Tributes, Majadahonda,
and Cuba-Puerto Rico; the organization of colloquiums,
workshops and lectures; displays of fine arts works exhibited in its small
gallery Majadahonda; digital art halls; concerts of
troubadours in a place called A Guitarra Limpia,
a space to display the artistic values of the New Cuban Song’s youngest
creators, and also a new way to compose and perform music inspired by
testimonials of the Cuban reality.
Another project of the Centre is the
CD collection Palabra Viva/Living Word,
where testimonies of important voices of the Cuban and Latin American culture
are recorded. In addition to words there
are images, documents kept in audio and video cassettes, printed and digital
photographs of every visit and event over the nine years of the Cultural
Centre’s existence. An important aspect
of the program is the Memory Documentary Award that has been
granted, since 1999, during the different gatherings of the International New
Latin American Film Festival of La
Havana, and the production of documentaries of testimonial
character that rescue life memories and stories of numerous personalities, as
well as historic, political and cultural events of the Caribbean island.
The Cultural Centre Pablo de la
Torriente Brau, located in one of the oldest
neighbourhoods of La Havana,
very close to the Bay, the Arms Square and the Convent of San Francisco de
Asís. It generates an authentic work of
creation there in writing, singing, researching, and preservation of live
history in voices that are open towards memory.
Idania Trujillo and Elizabet Rodríguez
elirohernandez@yahoo.es
Cultural Centre Pablo de la Torriente Brau,
Cuba
Back to Contents
MEXICO
Latin American Culture: Feasts and Rituals
In the community of “San Juan Chamula,” Chiapas, the forms of ritual expression of
the Mayan world still predominate. The population of this community is
integrated by “tzotziles.”.
The Chamulas reproduce in their daily life the mental universe of their
ancestors by keeping in their collective memory the mythical or ritual
characteristics of their culture. Among
the elements that help us understand the world vision of these people are the
feasts and ritual ceremonies, like the cycles of corn production and the
reproduction of nature, the baptisms, the weddings, the Carnival, and the days
of the saints.
These rituals contain customs or
cultural practices drawn from a mythical imaginary, and preserved by collective
memory. The fact of remembering enables
people to return in time, and the filling in of blank spaces is fostered in the
blending of individual memories with the group to which they belong. According
to Maurine Halbwachs (On Collective Memory): “The individual memory is
not completely isolated, and man, to evoke his own past, frequently has the
need to appeal to the ‘memories’ of others.” Symbolic representations reveal the
complexity of a conceptual system based on the particular perception of time
and space inherent to that culture. In spite of the variety of ritual forms and
expressions, a great uniformity can be observed in the manifestations. The
incorporation of new elements does not affect the logic of the original
symbolic systems in the underlying models that give structure to the social
action around the ritual.
The Mayan people suffered a
different degree of influences in its culture. All groups, among them the tzotziles and tzeltales, who are still resisting up to day,
were dominated and colonized. They had
to respond to the different ways of pressure along the centuries in order to
transform their ways of social life, their technology and their organization
models. Some of them received the
tremendous impact of the Evangelical and Christianization phenomena. Some others faced more delicate processes,
although destabilizing as well. In spite of such changes, they continued
expressing the harmony of their thought systems, translated in the multiple and
constant references to the unchangeable Cosmologic order that rules their word.
These cultural resistances are
expressed in the immutable belief of the reproduction of a cyclical history
that escapes the logic of modern time. This can be confirmed through the way
they appropriate, legitimately, of characters, images and facts of “the other,”
to include them in their spiritual world, integrating them in their mental
structures. It is possible to observe in their ideological systems the balance
of the opposing, the duality of the supernatural world, and the cyclical
character of time, and in consequence a stoic philosophy of the human
condition. These aspects are present in the feasts of baptism, the Carnival,
the initiation ceremonies, and the feasts of fertility and healing.
The Mayans, subject to the culture
of their ancestors, fear the end of the world, the Apocalypse. For that reason,
they turn towards their own cosmos, masters of their own history, which is
culturally doomed to come to an end. To avoid the end of the world,
catastrophe rituals of life with blood are necessary. In this way, they
reproduce the myths and rituals of their ancestors.
Maria Teresa Lemos, Brazil
Back to Contents
Iran
Recent Trends in Oral History
Oral history
goes back many centuries. Its roots are
ingrained in the history of Islam, where narration is regarded as a major
source for the use and transfer of occurrences and events. However, the
development of oral history in Iran,
as we understand it today, began much later than in the United States or Europe.
The modern
origin of oral history in Iran
dates back twenty-four years to shortly after the war between Iran and Iraq began in 1980. The Oral History Project began as an effort
to gather and preserve valuable information vis-B-vis the
war, the bravery involved, the commanding leaders, and the distinguished
martyrs of the war. After the war, the
Oral History Project continued, albeit slowly.
A few centers emerged that have since continued their activities during
the 1980's. These include:
-
The Iranian Revolution Documentation
Center (IRDS
Organization)
- Institute for
Iranian Contemporary historical Studies.
- The National
Library Archives.
- Islamic
Revolution Literature Office.
- The Oral
History Archive of Astan- e Quds-e Razavi.
We are faced
today with several problems concerning the study of oral history in Iran. Foremost, subjects, research methods, and
styles tend to vary at the different centers.
Secondly, oral history remains marginalized with respect to other
fields. While the potential research
capabilities are enormous, more attention is paid to political and military
fields, rural-urban migration, regional minorities, Afghan migration, gender
issues, identity, and the history of organizations, etc.
Only the Oral
History Archives of the Astan-e Quds Library has done some work on social
science and cultural subjects. There is
still much to be done to ensure that oral history is in a position to make
important contributions to historical disciplines. In spite of problems such as
political instability, which tends to pose the biggest challenge in our time,
we are optimistic that oral history in the near future will continue to
influence other disciplines. It is bound
to spread and to assume a major role in the study of contemporary history and
become a part of a larger effort toward a broader and more qualitative social
history.
Abolfazl Hassanabady,
ahassanabady1@yahoo.com
Back to Contents
The United
States
Hurricane Katrina Oral Histories
The American Folklife
Center at the Library of Congress has
announced plans to collect life stories of the survivors of Hurricane Katrina,
which devastated much of the Gulf Coast of the United States. The Library plans to assist the hundreds of
libraries damaged by the storm and to document the unfortunate event by
interviewing people who lived through it.
The Folklife Center is modeling the project on previous efforts
extending back to interviews with Americans after the Pearl
Harbor attack in 1941, and more recently on the September 11, 2001
terrorist attacks. “This is the kind of
history that in many ways usually falls through the cracks,” said Peggy Bulger,
director of the American
Folkife Center. “We feel strongly that this is something that
needs to be preserved. The fact that
these interviews will be included in the Library of Congress gives them a
necessary longevity. One hundred years
from now, people will be able to go back and listen to these interviews and
understand what happened and how we felt.”
In this endeavor, the Library of Congress is working with other projects
sponsored by the University of Houston and by several institutions in Louisiana and Mississippi. For further information see:
http://www.loc.gov/folklife/
Back to Contents
From Mouth to Page
Oral History Archives
The United States
VOICES OF THE PEOPLE: Oral Histories in Women’s, Labor, Ethnic and
Community Studies
The
award-winning Virtual Oral/Aural History Archive, California
State University,
Long Beach now
has made available close to 1100 hours of original oral history recordings: www.csulb.edu.
VOAHA brings to life the timbre and tone of voice, the nuances of spoken
language, and the richness of oral narratives of some 343 African Americans,
American Indians, Asian Americans, Latinos/as and South and Eastern European
immigrants. They range from anarchists and communists to community builders and
jazz arrangers. Their narratives documenting daily life and activities, 1890s
to the 1990s, are organized in 30 series:
WOMEN’S
STUDIES – 142 narrators, 695 hours
Topics: Radicals and reformers; suffragists; women in professions, business
and entertainment; WW2 aircraft workers; women’s lives/women’s work; garment
workers; Asian American women’s movement; Chicana feminists; feminist health
movement; Los Angeles feminists; and welfare mothers’ movement.
LABOR STUDIES
- 48 narrators, 167 hours
Topics: Desegregating unions, WWII; organizing Mexican furniture workers;
oil workers organizing and lives; women garment workers, including organizing
of Chicago Women’s Local; and the lives and experiences of individuals active
in the labor movement in Flint, Michigan, Ludlow, Colorado and Oakland,
California.
ETHNIC
STUDIES - 110 narrators, 256 hours
African
Americans- Topics: Desegregating
LA aircraft and shipbuilding unions; organizing to open wartime jobs, and the
experiences of the women aircraft workers, and civil rights.
American
Indian Lives – Topics: Impact of Indian boarding schools; the occupation of Alcatraz Island.
Asian
Americans - Topics:
Terminal
Island Japanese fishing village; Japanese community of South Bay; Asian
American women’s movement; and Cambodian and Hmong immigrants.
Mexican/Chicano/Chicana - Topics: Chicano student movement; Mexican Revolution; life and work on
Rancho Los Alamitos; furniture and garment workers; Chicana feminists; aircraft
workers; and women’s lives/women’s work.
COMMUNITY STUDIES - 91 narrators, 195
hours
Topics: Discovery/extraction of oil
and subsequent economic, political and social changes; building of community
institutions, including the university; work/lives of oil workers, and Mexican
workers on Rancho Los Alamitos; and women community builders.
The interviews
are broken into organic time segments that are summarized and assigned search
terms, enabling users to locate relevant segments by search terms; or,
alternatively, to browse the collection hierarchy and listen to entire tapes or
selected segments. Full bibliographic citations are provided.
Sherna Berger Gluck
sbgluck@csulb.edu
Studs Terkel Center for Oral History
The Chicago
Historical Society has created The Studs Terkel Center for Oral History. One of America’s most popular and prolific
oral historians, Terkel amassed a wealth of stories in his more than fifty
years as a radio host and author of such path-breaking books as Hard Times
(1970), Working (1974) and The Good War (1984). The Chicago
Historical Society has approximately 6,000 reels (about 5,000 hours) of sound
recordings from his radio show, the Studs Terkel Program, including
interviews with Rosa Parks, Tennessee Williams, Leonard Bernstein, Nelson
Algren, and Martin Luther King Jr. The Studs Terkel Center for Oral History
contains not only Terkel's extensive work, but also recordings from the Chicago
Historical Society's Global Community and Teen Chicago projects. Those interested in hearing these recordings
can contact the Chicago Historical Society at Clark and North Avenue, Chicago, Illinois, 60614-6071. Phone: 312-642-1600. Fax: 312-266-2077. www:http:chicagohistory.org
Back to Contents
Books
UN
Voices: The Struggle for Development and Social Justice, by Thomas G. Weiss, Tatiana
Carayannis, Louis Emmerij, and Richard Jolly, United States, INDIANA UNIVERSITY
PRESS, 2005
Organizations
are the product of many participants and perhaps none more than the United
Nations, which represents the nations of the world and draws its staff from
those many members. The United Nations
maintains extensive archives of itself and its components (see www.unesco.org/archives/guide),
part of which consists now of oral history interviews. These range from interviews with soldiers on
UN peacekeeping missions to oral memoirs of the UN Secretary Generals and other
senior staff. The UN Intellectual
History Project, launched in 1999, is currently preparing a CD-ROM of interview
recordings and transcripts from this collection. Yet since historians to date
have made little use of this mountain of resource material, the authors have
compiled this volume from seventy-three “voices” in the collection as a sample
of the larger collection. Their aim is
to produce human stories that reveal a picture “—not of tired bureaucrats but
rather of a focused and highly experienced group of professionals with an
extraordinary range of past and present involvements in national and international
life.”
Back to Contents
Journals
ORAL HISTORY ASSOCIATION OF AUSTRALIA JOURNAL, no.27, 2005
Talking Families/Talking Communities Issue
ARTICLES:
Tales Full of Music and Strong and Resourceful
Women—One Woman’s Memories of a Childhood Spent in Rural
Queensland during
the Depression, Katharine Elise Perry
Growing Up in
Middle-Class Southern England in the 1920s and
1930s, Gilliam D. M. Turner
Seeing More
Clearly: An Investigation into Engaging a Reluctant Family Member in an Oral
History Interview, Jennifer Baarman
Paradise Camp:
Documenting the Holocaust, Frank Heimans
“I’m 21 and Have
No Any Happy Days”: An Oral History Narrative from the Hazara Refugee Community, Denise Phillips
Interviewing
Norman Graham: Memories of Gosford Farm Home for Boys, 1935-1936, Valarie Rubie
A Primary
Challenge: Bringing Oral History into Mainstream Historical Collections and
Beyond the Comfort Zone,
Margaret Park
Sharing Stories:
Collaboration, Community, Creativity and Copyright, Helen Klaebe
Creating a City—Logan Celebrates 25
Years, Mary Howells
The Role of Oral
Histories in the Gathering of Historic Material for the Town of Victoria Park, Jan McCahon Marshall
Tales from the
‘Scripts, Elizabeth A. Wright
Let’s Not Throw
the Baby Out with the Bathwater, Tim Bowden
[Contributors
are invited from Australia
and overseas for publication in next year’s issue of OHAA Journal on the theme
of Oral History and its Challenges.
Papers are sought that (a) deal with the range of ethical,
methodological, legal and technological challenges being met in the practice,
collection and usage of oral history; and (b) provide critiques/analysis of
strategies and protocols in projects, the perceived value and meanings
attributed by oral historians to their work, or the way in which projects and
agencies handle their involvement.
Papers are due by 30 March 2006.
For further detail please contact the editor, Mr. Francis Good, GPO Box
462, Darwin, NT 0801, Australia. Editor-ohaa@digisurf.net.au ]
Oral History, Vol. 33, no 2, Autumn 2005
ARTICLES:
“Muscle Memory”:
Performing Oral History, Jeff Friedman
Oral History
Across Generations: Age, Generational Identify and Oral Testimony, Sally
Chandler
Living the Lie:
The Armenian Intelligentsia in the Soviet Union,
John Mason
Flouting the
Law: Women and the Hazards of Cleaning Moving Machinery in the Cotton Industry,
1930-1970, Michele Abendstern, Christine Hallett, and Lesley Wade
“The Way We Speak:: Web-Based Representations
of Changing Communities in England,
Rob Perks and Jonnie Robinson
Reminiscence and
War Truama: Recalling the Japanese Occupation of Singapore, 1942-1945, Kevin
Blackburn
Walking the
Tightrope: Raising Funds for Community Projects, Frazer Swift
All the articles are abstracted on the Oral History
Society website: http://www.oralhistory.org.uk
Oral History Review, Vol 32, no 2,
Winter/Spring 2005
ARTICLES:
History and Memory in the World of Alessandro Portelli: A
Conversation about The Order Has Been Carried Out: History, Memory, and the
Meaning of a Nazi Massacre in Rome
Introduction to
the Session, Jacqueline Dowd Hall
Fossilized Lies:
Reflections of Alessandro Portelli’s The Order Has Been Carried Out, David
W. Blight
The Oral
Historian as Memorist, Paula Hamilton
Stories and
Bodies: A Personal Relection on Alessandro Portelli’s The Order Has Been
Carried Out, Edward T. Linenthal
Response to
Commentaries, Alessandro Portelli
The Struggle to
Breathe: Living a Life Expectancy with Cystic Fibrosis, J. Daniel Schubert
and Margaret Murphy
Back to Contents
Put it in Writing
WORDS AND SILENCES
the journal of the IOHA, is seeking contributions for the 2006 issue on:
1. Teaching oral history
We are asking authors to reflect on
their experience as teachers of oral history, and perhaps measure it against
what they think is really worth teaching and learning about oral history. You
may teach in a university, middle school or a non-school setting. There are a
number of issues to discuss in terms of the different kinds of settings and
students, overall goals, central concepts, emphasis on technique or analytical
frameworks and so on. And this may lead into a discussion of what books work in
what situations or of in-class exercises and practical training projects you
have developed. Another large and undoubtedly important question is whether we
see our students change as they learn and do oral history. These are of course
only suggestions. Your experience in teaching perhaps raises different
questions so please do share your ruminations and illuminate other corners of
the classroom.
We prefer concise and reflective essays (about
2500 words) rather than longer and descriptive monographs.
2. Collections and archives
This section is
devoted to discussion of practical problems encountered in the creation and
preservation of oral sources. Please send in preferably short pieces (500-1000
words) and share your accumulated wisdom in the field.
3. Reviews of books, films, plays or other performances or exhibits that rely on oral history.
GUIDELINES
- Contributions may be written in English or Spanish (or both, which would save us translation work).
- Use Word for windows 95 or later.
- In short pieces please include references, if necessary, in the text and not as footnotes.
- For longer pieces, place footnotes at the end, as text and not in the automatic format.
- References:
- Author (first and last name), Title (bold if a book, "in quotes if an article, diss, etc."), Publication data (Place, Publisher, date if book; name of journal in bold, no. and date if article), p. or pp.
- Subsequent references: Author's last name, shortened title, p. or pp.
- Interviews: Interviewee's full name, interviewed by (interviewer's full name), place, date, reference to collection if any.
Please email your article as an attachment to:
wordsandsilences@inah.gob.mx or gnecoechea.deh@deh.inah.gob.mx
The DEADLINE for receipt of contributions is 1 February 2006.
Please pass this request on to other oral historians.
Back to Contents
H-ORALHIST
H-Oralhist (http://www.h-net.org/~oralhist/), is
an on-line network for those interested in studies related to oral
history. It is a member of the H-Net,
the Humanities & Social Sciences Online initiative, an international
interdisciplinary organization of scholars and teachers dedicated to utilizing
the enormous educational potential of the Internet and the World Wide Web. Its edited lists and web sites publish peer
reviewed essays, multimedia materials, and discussion for scholars and the
interested public. The computing heart of H-Net resides at the Center for
Humane Arts, Letters, and Social Sciences Online, at Michigan State
University, but H-Net
officers, editors and subscribers come from all over the globe. You can subscribe for free to the oral
history list at: http://www.h-net.org/lists/subscribe.cgi?list=H-OralHist
Back to Contents
IOHA Newsletter Guidelines and Deadlines:
Copy is preferred as Microsoft Word
attachment. Footnotes included in items should be included only in
parentheses and not formatted.
Images and illustrations should be scanned at 72 dpi and sent in jpg or pic formats.
Send via e-mail to both co-editors:
Pilar Domínguez (Spanish text)- pdprats@dch.ulpgc.es
Don Ritchie (English text) - oralhistorians@comcast.net
Maximum Length:
· Future conferences, meetings, and other announcements - 250 words
· Conference reports - 500 words
· Archive News - 500 words
· New Projects - 1000 words
Deadlines:
· October 15 - posted to website in January.
· April 15 - posted to website in June
If you change your email address, please
notify the IOHA treasurer, Almut Leh (almut.leh@fernuni-hagen.de).
Back to Contents
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. The Association meets every two years in a
different region or continent. 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 Rina Benmayor, from the
United States, and current
Council members come from Australia,
Barbados, Brazil, England,
Japan, Mexico, Nigeria,
South Africa, Spain, Turkey
and the United States.
For membership forms, go to Membership
on the IOHA website. For inquiries
e-mail the Association's treasurer, Almut Leh (almut.leh@fernuni-hagen.de).
Fees for two-year membership (July 2005 - June 2007)
Individuals: 46 Euros
Institutions: 92 Euros
Students: 23 Euros
Back to Contents
