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

Number 9, Spring 2002

Starting Points

From the Editors

Disbelief, pain, sorrow, anger, fear, regret, we never thought we’d be writing to you after experiencing so many different, difficult and consuming emotions. But of course we’ve all of us been deeply affected by the acts of terrorism perpetrated in the US and on the international community on September 11. Whatever our first reactions, we’ve all had plenty of opportunity since then to reflect and consider the effects of these actions and to wonder how we all work out a way of living and learning from these events. No one would wish that all those lives would be lost and nothing gained. Here’s where the international oral history movement should come into its own.

Already the Columbia Oral History Project has been funded to interview people from New York City and elsewhere in the US about their experience of September 11 and its aftermath (see ‘From Page to Mouth’ below).  For the rest of us, here’s an opportunity to build on our internationalism, bringing oral historians, their news, their projects and their activities together from around the world. Listening and giving space and amplification to those voices which are less likely to be written down or recorded has always been our raison d’être, and at this time it has never been more needed. Deciding which those voices might be is an open one. This movement was built on the idea that no voice should be so powerful that others are drowned or silenced and we must ensure that such principles remain. Indeed now that war is being conducted in our names it is even more important that all voices be heard. The power to silence contesting accounts and experience is, as we know from previous wars, immense.  By its very nature, oral history seeks to resist censorship even when it means that voices which conflict with present feelings and emotions are recorded. Not hearing can cost us all dear.

Our conference next June in South Africa takes the title, “The Power of Oral History: Memory, Healing and Development.” Those words have gained weight and urgency. As oral historians, we can’t stand aside.  Those past and present witnesses whom we evoke have much to tell us about the present we’re living through and the kinds of futures we want to build.

Joanna Bornat and Rina Benmayor, co-editors

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From the President

This is IOHA’s third electronic newsletter, and relocating our website to Brazil, marks a new stage of stability and consolidation for IOHA.  Five years after its formal inception, we can say that IOHA has achieved much.  New regions and researchers have joined the Association.  The geographical choices for the international conferences have grown, infusing new energy into the regions.  Conferences now take place in regions that were once on the periphery of international oral history debates.  With the expansion of geographical membership, we are seeing new national and social topics and concerns come to the fore. The next international conference will take place in South Africa and already more than 200 proposals have been received. This exemplifies the success of the regional rotation and renewal strategy.

Moving IOHA News into electronic format has also expanded communication among our members.  It has allowed us to expand our reach to all those interested in oral history.  With electronic communications, we hope to create a greater network of researchers, greater opportunities for dialogue, and an expanded sphere of action for our association.

Oral history has an important role to play in our increasingly globalized world.  It enables a diversity of voices to be heard and promotes greater dialogue among different peoples and cultures.  I believe that one of IOHA’s main objectives is to constitute itself as a plural space, a space built on diversity and multiple perspectives and that stimulates plural modes of doing oral history.  In this way, I believe oral history helps promote greater social equality among peoples and fosters greater understanding of the complexities of trans-cultural relations and respect for specific identities.

Marieta de Moraes Ferreira, president

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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

Note: Reports and news of oral history projects, archives, and other 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.

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.

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

SPAIN

SECOND COLLOQUIUM ON ARCHIVES AND ORAL SOURCES: VOICE AND IMAGE

Deadline: January 15, 2002
Contact Lluis Ubeda: ahcbhafo@trivium.qh.ub.es

The Historical Archives of the City of Barcelona and the journal History, Anthropology and Oral Sources will hold a second day-long colloquium on oral sources, diverse documentary sources, and research methodologies.  The seminar will include discussion of two key issues: the growing usage of new media and information technologies in research, and the need for standards and guidelines given the growing attraction of new media and the information avalanche.  Participants will include audio-visual specialists – filmmakers, documentarians, and art historians.  A documentary and historical photographic exhibit will be on display.  The organizers invite papers on the use of audio-visual materials in research on the contemporary world.  The recommended length is twelve pages, double-spaced, in print and on diskette in PC-compatible format.  The deadline for papers is January 15, 2002.  Registration rate is 4000 pesetas or $21.0 dollars.

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NETHERLANDS

FOURTH EUROPEAN SOCIAL SCIENCE HISTORY CONFERENCE

The Hague
27 February - 2 March 2002
Conference website: http://www.iisg.nl/esshc
E mail: esshc@iisg.nl

The ESSHC will gather scholars interested in explaining historical phenomena through social science methods. The conference is characterized by lively, small group exchanges, rather than by formal plenary sessions.  Topics include: Africa, Antiquity, Asia, Criminal Justice, Culture, Economics, Education and Childhood, Elites, Ethnicity and Migration, Family and Demography, Geography, Government and Politics, Health, Labour, Latin America, Middle Ages, Nations and Nationalism, Oral History, Political Movements, Quantitative Methods, Religion, Rural, Sexuality, Social Inequality, Technology, Theory, Urban, Women and Gender, World History.  For further information and electronic pre-registration forms see e-addresses above or contact conference secretariat at: European Social Science History Conference 2002, c/o International Institute of Social History, Cruquiusweg 31, 1019 AT Amsterdam, Netherlands; telephone: +31.20.66 858 66; Fax: +31.20.66 541 81.

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FRANCE

RESEARCH METHODS IN AMERICAN STUDIES: ORAL HISTORY TECHNIQUE AND VISUAL CULTURE ANALYSIS.

Workshop at the European Association of American Studies Conference on ‘The United Sates in Europe: Nationhood, Citizenship and Culture.’
Bordeaux, France
25 March, 2001

The workshop's purpose is both practical and theoretical: to address how teachers and scholars can use the spoken word and/or the visual image most effectively as an ‘American Studies’ method. We are especially interested in papers that conduct cross-cultural comparisons of how oral and pictorial sources are interpreted by American Studies scholars within the United States and elsewhere.

Some suggested theoretical concerns include: How are oral history or iconographic materials used to negotiate cultural authority (elite versus common, educated versus ‘common’ knowledge)? What role does the complex relationship between history and memory play in the creation of oral-based primary sources or the recycling of nostalgic ‘old time’ images? What are the respective weaknesses and strengths of using oral history or visual materials as evidence of the American experience? What parts of history, culture, society are these sources best suited to illuminate? What do they tend to obscure or distort? How are oral histories or graphic images currently deployed in cyberculture, propaganda, or advertising? Why are oral interviews about the contemporary past so frequently conducted by American Studies scholars and historians in the United States but relatively neglected in by their counterparts in Western Europe and elsewhere? How can the discipline of art history inform the visual analysis of American popular culture?

Some practical considerations might include: for oral history, the mechanics of the interview process and tape transcription; the negotiation of intellectual property rights; the creation of online access to audio collections; for visual culture: pedagogical approaches to analyzing graphic images; imputing cultural stratification along the spectrum of ‘highbrow’ and "lowbrow’ artistic productions; conducting archival research in iconographic collections. For both oral history and visual materials: case study models of hermeneutical praxis.
For more information contact:
Professor John Dean, Université de Versailles, 13, rue Monge / 75005 / Paris / FRANCE, email: John.Dean@sudam.uvsq.fr , fax: 01.43.29.34.09
Professor Michael William Doyle, Ball State University Department of History, Burkhardt Building 213 / Muncie, IN / 47306-0480 / USA, e mail: mwdoyle@bsu.edu, fax: 765.285.5612

Participation in this workshop is open to all EAAS members as well as members of the French American Studies Association (Association Française d'Etudes Américaines [AFEA]) and the Great Lakes American Studies Association (GLASA). It continues the collaboration which began with the jointly sponsored AFEA-GLASA conference on ‘Community, Family, and Youth’ held at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana, March 16-18, 2001.

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GERMANY

THE PRESENCE OF THE PAST: TRANSFORMATION AND DEALING WITH THE PAST IN EASTERN AND CENTRAL EUROPE

Berlin.
23-25 May, 2002

The Institute for History and Biography at the Open University in Hagen, as the German representative of the International Oral History Association, supported by the Stiftung Aufarbeitung der SED Diktatur in Berlin, will hold a conference on the transformation process in Central and Eastern Europe. The subjects of the conference will be: individual and collective remembrances of the time before, during and after the transformation process; subjective dealing with the ‘new time’; the investigation and archival and judicial treatment of the past.

The conference aims to compare several countries in this region. Two scholars from each country are invited to present papers. One of them should give an overview of the historical, political and judicial developments in his or her country, and the other paper should focus on a concrete example of the experience of this process, and of dealing with the past, within different social groups: elites, parties, public service, churches, intellectuals etc. The main theme of the conference is thus the ‘Ungleichzeitigkeit’ (non-simultaneity) of political structures and mental orientations at times of system transformation.

Beside a keynote speech and the overviews of historical and political developments the preliminary program includes the following sections: life story and personal continuities, problems of new orientations, changes in family and every-day-life, oppression and opposition. The conference will be closed by a panel discussion. The conference also offers some social events in its program.

For further information please contact: Dr. Alexander von Plato, Institut für Geschichte und Biographie der Fernuniversitaet Hagen, Liebigstr. 11, D-58511 Luedenscheid, tel+49(0)2351-24580, fax +49(0)2351-39973, email: alexander.vonplato@fernuni-hagen.de.

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BRAZIL

VI NATIONAL BRAZILIAN ORAL HISTORY ASSOCIATION (ABHO) MEETING - TIME AND NARRATIVE

28 to 31 May, 2002
History Department- FFLCH - USP
Call for Papers.  Deadline: December15, 2001
Contact: mljanott@usp.br

Suggested themes for Research Groups (among others): Identity and otherness; Everyday life and globalisation; Between the written and the oral; Individual and collective; Oral sources preservation: archives; Audiovisual language; Narratives and narrators; Migration issues; Gender and generation; Oral history and education; Labour and workers; Oral history and power relationships; New perspectives and trends on oral history.

Proposals should include title, author(s), and institution, preferred Research group, three keywords, address, e-mail, phone number and fax. Send proposals by e-mail to mljanott@usp.br and three printed copies and one floppy disk to: Associação Nacional de História Oral, A/C Professora Maria de Lourdes Monaco Janotti, Departamento de História - FFLCH – USP, Avenida Professor Lineu Prestes, 338 - CP 8105, 05508-000 - São Paulo – SP.

Participants will be notified of acceptance by January 15, 2002. The full paper is due February 28, 2002. For more information contact: Maria de Lourdes Monaco Janotti, ABHO Vice-president and the Meeting coordinator, mljanott@usp.br

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UNITED KINGDOM

ORAL HISTORY AND PERFORMANCE

Annual Conference of the Oral History Society Stantonbury Campus, Milton Keynes
15th to 16th June 2002

There are many ways of developing and staging theatrical events using oral history as source material. This conference will both look at the successes and failures as well as exploring the processes of puffing together a presentation. How do you involve people in the development of a play? What are the ethics of using oral testimony and adapting it to a wider audience?

As well as the more conventional conference presentations and papers, there will be a series of themed workshops exploring the different and varied uses of this source material. Conference delegates will be invited to participate and comment on work in progress during the two days through a number of workshop settings. This will culminate in a presentation on the first evening in the performance area within the campus. Workshops planned so far are: Playback Theatre; Story telling; Song writing; Play writing and performance.

The various presentations planned for the conference will include one from young people based locally, older peoples’ theatre and practitioners relating their experiences. There will also be presentations on the indirect effects of this method of working like community development and regeneration, the health values and the personal development of participants.

For further details contact Robert Wilkinson: 19 Bushwood, Leytonstone, London El1 3BN UK e-mail: robert.wilkinson@camden.gov.uk

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IOHA - SOUTH AFRICA

THE POWER OF ORAL HISTORY: MEMORY, HEALING AND DEVELOPMENT.  XII

International Oral History Conference.
KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa
24-27 June, 2002

The countdown for the IOHA 2002 conference has begun! In June 2002, delegates from all over the world will gather in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa, for the 12th conference of the IOHA. The conference will be held on the Pietermaritzburg campus of the University of Natal. Pietermaritzburg is the oldest colonial establishment in KwaZulu-Natal.  It was established by the Voortrekkers in 1838 after they defeated the Zulus. Ghandi was arrested at the Pietermaritzburg station, after a white passenger objected to the presence of an Indian travelling overnight in the carriage. This incident played a decisive role in the genesis of satyagraha (non-violence).

The political violence of the mid-1980s, began in Edendale, one of the black townships of Pietermaritzburg. Hundreds of people were killed and tens of thousands lost their homes.  Peace was restored only after the installation of the first democratic government in 1994.  The retrieval of this painful and controversial history, by way of oral history, has just begun.

Conferences Sub-themes: Trauma, memory and reconciliation; Preservation and dissemination of oral archives; Oral history and digitization; Oral history in teaching and learning; Gender in oral history; Ethnicity and identity; Land claims and oral testimonies; Religion and memory; Stories of warfare, famine and migration; Sickness and disability in oral history.

At the conference, there will be simultaneous translation (in English, Spanish and, on some occasions, in Zulu and Sesotho) for the plenary sessions. Efforts will be made to provide informal consecutive summary translation during workshop sessions. The Conference Committee will confirm acceptance or rejection of your proposal by September 1, 2001. The final paper of no more than 15 double-spaced pages, must reach the organizers before December 15, 2001, for publication in the Conference Proceedings.

Send proposals to:
IOHA 2002 Organizing Committee  c/o Professor Philippe Denis,
Oral History Project, School of Theology, University of Natal
PB X 01, Scottsville 3209, South Africa
Phone: (27) 33 260 50 64
Fax: (27) 33 260 58 58
E-mail: ohp@nu.ac.za
Conference website: http://www.hs.unp.ac.za/ioha2002
Enquiries to:
Africa: Tayba Sharif tayba@aucegypt.edu
Latin America: Verena Alberti VERENA@fgv.br
North America: Anne Ritchie A-RITCHIE@nga.gov
Asia: Nükhet Sirman sirman@boun.edu.tr
Australia: Janis Wilton jwilton@metz.une.edu.au
Europe: Mercedes Vilanova vilanova@trivium.gh.ub.es

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AUSTRALIA

LIFE WRITING AND THE GENERATIONS.

International Auto/biography Association conference
La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia
15-17 July 2002

The La Trobe University Unit for Studies in Biography and Autobiography is planning a large-scale international event under the umbrella of the International Auto/Biography Association. We have in mind the ways in which the generations write about one another. Here is an indicative - but by no means exhaustive - list of some ways in which the title might be construed: gender and the generations; generations of life-writing criticism and theory; cross-cultural dimensions; indigeneity and the generations: Australia and the Pacific; generational writing in Asia and the Pacific; science, life-writing and generational change; psychoanalytic dimensions; sociological dimensions (in addition to those already mentioned); historical dimensions (in addition to those already mentioned); spiritual dimensions: discipleship, generational aspects of religious experience etc.; oral narrative and generational memory; philosophy of the self/subject and its representation: papers reflecting various philosophical/theoretical orientations on the self/subject and its representation in life-writing narrative; life phases: individuals writing at and/or about different stages of their lives

One session of the conference will be devoted to Australian content, specifically to the 'Stolen Generation' of Australian aborigines and their narratives.

We'll keep the information coming, so stay tuned. Hope you can make it - and please spread the word. Dick Freadman (for the organizing committee).

Richard Freadman, Professor of English, Director, Unit for Studies in Biography and Autobiography Room 531, Humanities 2 Building, La Trobe University, Victoria, Australia 3086.
Tel (03)94792406, fax:(03)94793637 English Website: http://www.latrobe.edu.au/www/english/english.html, Unit for Studies in Biography and Autobiography Website: http://www.latrobe.edu.au/www/english/usba/usba.html.

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Face to Face

 Conference and Association Reports

UNITED KINGDOM

TALKING COMMUNITY HISTORIES

Annual conference of the Oral History Society held jointly with London Guildhall University, 22-23 June 2001.

Tourists to Tower Hill in June had the choice of two very different histories, the history of kings and queens at the Tower of London versus the very real life histories of everyday people as discussed at Talking Community Histories, held at London Guildhall University’s Tower Hill and Jewry Street sites.

Divided only by the contemporary version of a moat - the A3211, the two venues were both packed to capacity. As the former sought to document for leisure and pleasure to a mass of overseas tourists, Talking Community Histories contended with the growing complexity of oral history as a discipline and forum for social research and as an aid to community development and organizing.

For anyone new to oral history, this was definitely the conference to be at. In every classroom, corridor and around every corner beginners and old pros alike were huddled deep in thought and heated discussions as to the rationale, purpose of, and divergent possibilities for oral history.

Gargi Bhattacharya (University of Birmingham), opening plenary entitled Whose Story? enthused about the passion of story telling, the quirky playfulness of narratives  as well as the complexity of negotiating meaning. She was also the first to raise a popular issue and, one repeatedly discussed at the conference, namely the distinct nature, purpose and role of collecting ethnic minority histories. She championed with vigour the need for a central archive of Asian history.

One of the successes of this conference was its ability to afford time and space to everyone. A plethora of engaging and curious workshops left audiences spoilt for choice. It is a point demonstrated by the diversity of  organizations and individuals represented, museums, archives, oral history societies and community heritage projects all described the place and role of oral history in their work.

The first series of workshops grappled intently, far beyond the epochal and mythical moment of the millennium, with the everyday subjects of stories. Life, death, conflict, communities in transition, political scepticism, regional identity, our industrial heritage all reflected the multitude of possible subject matters that make oral history such a powerful and poignant force.

Van Ly Ung and Zafi Behlic of the Vietnamese Oral History project began by humbly describing themselves as newcomers to the field, but in providing a passionate and compelling justification for the use of oral history they proved themselves to be  enthusiastic advocates for new developments for work with refugee communities. Another principle success of the conference was its ability to convene workshops that provided for a far reaching and full debate. And so it was that Martin Roberts’ ‘‘Coventry Lives’ in the same workshop could also, share his experience of working with immigrant communities and describe how a pilot initiative has provided an opportunity to refocus one local authorities interpretation and outreach work.

Sheila Rowbotham’s launch of the new paperback edition of her memoirs Promises of a Dream  (Penguin, 2001) was, at the end of a long hot day of deliberation and theoretical juxtaposing, a refreshing and amusing reminder of the pleasure and satisfaction derived from sharing ones memories. A quick canter through the social history of the 1960s was a powerful and timely reminder of the omnipotent nature of oral history, its ability to reach the parts other forms of social enquiry have yet to reach.

If anybody attended Steve Hussey’s plenary What Principles with the distinct intention of getting a quick checklist of guidelines from which to work, they were to be sorely disappointed. Instead Steve’s admission and frank acceptance of the duplicity and complexity of the ethical and logistical issues involved in interviewing, with examples from both his own work and the discipline itself, was a celebration of the diverse nature of both oral history and its participants. It was an enlightening presentation that had the ability to simultaneously unsettle and appease old pros and beginners alike.

The second series of workshops continued the discussion with a passion. Policy developments aligned themselves uneasily with the logistical pragmatics of interviewing. Whether it was Graham Smith describing the problems of negotiating with a community of doctors in Paisley, or Padmini Broomfield reclaiming the history of Asian women in Southampton the presentations lent themselves easily to the next question and the subject of the third plenary What Outcomes?

An all singing dancing account by Roger Kitchen of The Living Archive demonstrated the post recoding utopia that stands before oral history (and the subject of next years conference- Performance). Indeed it was also a wonderful opportunity to provide for the creative play offered to oral history by new technology. An illuminating, visually stunning and moving interpretation of one man's life, the stories of Hawtin Munday , was one of those occasions when the audience was left crying more! more! And luckily there is a web site that can help with exactly that. Far from bemoaning the technical frustrations and laborious task of archiving, transcription, and dealing with PageMaker, Roger’s brief illumination to the wonders of new technology offered a lifeline and hope to those drowning under a sea of cassettes and mini discs.

The joy of the final series of workshops was the ability to enjoy and regain the pleasure principle. Engaging accounts and explanations from Robert Rose of Braintree District Museum, Barbara Applin from Basingstoke Archaeological and Historical Society, pitted creativity and social worth against the business case for cost effective working.  Meanwhile Richard Sargeant  and Marie Clare-Balaam  from Wolverhampton Black and Ethnic Minority Experience Project and Helen Wallenda, Narena Moleste and Amelia Martin all  reiterated (as if it needed to be said again) the ‘social capital’ of oral history. The thought provoking and insightful presentations offered by Pam Schweitzer and Bernie Arigho of Age Exchange and Ann Day  and Rachel Colivin of Portsmouth Oral History Network was a reminder of the power of oral history as a form of engagement for community and audience development.

It was with baited breath that the audience awaited the fourth and final plenary, What Funding?  The Heritage Lottery Fund meets real life, David versus Goliath. Yet with charm and a fair degree of common sense Helen Jackson, Deputy Director of Policy and Research at the Heritage Lottery Fund managed to win over a suscipicious audience. A clear and thankfully plain English guide to HLF’s current and future priorities was used to explain the various funding pots available. The fact that oral history has moved up the priority list for HLF as it seeks to tackle social exclusion, and aims to offer heritage activities to every community in England was reassuring, and almost made Rob Wilkinson’s from Waltham Forest Oral History Workshop presentation redundant.

Rob took us back to the essence of oral history, and asked some fundamental basic questions speaking to his title: ‘Running on Empty’. Do we necessarily always need funding? It can cause problems. Are we always sure what we want it for. Do we need capacity building for oral history societies and community heritage groups? Rob raised some interesting and important points, unfortunately however in a setting with too many oral historians, as is ever the case time ran out for talking and listening as the session had to be brought to a close.
And so it was the end of another conference, an amazingly successful and popular one, with many new faces, new ideas and new strategies. A lot to learn from the past, share in the present, and take away for the future, a real success on all fronts.

Rita Chadha

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ARGENTINA

RESEARCH, METHODOLOGY, AND PRACTICES.

Fifth National Oral History Meeting, August 13-15, 2001, Buenos Aires, Argentina

The Historical Institute of the City of Buenos Aires, the National Office of Patrimony, Museums and Art, and the Oral History Program of the University of Buenos Aires co-organized the 5th National Oral History Meeting in Buenos Aires, August 13-15, 2001.
Held every two years since 1993, this Meeting’s theme was Research, Methodology, and Practices.  More than 250 participants attended, a large percentage from outside Buenos Aires and from abroad.  Participants delivered approximately 80 papers, divided into sessions on Research, Methodological Reflections, and Reflections on Practices.  Three simultaneous workshops were offered on Oral History, Museums and Archives; Teaching Oral History; and Oral History and Historical Research.

The first workshop focused on creation, use and preservation of oral sources in archives and museums; the second on participants’ experiences teaching oral history and the role of oral history in education; and the third on problems in historical research, especially in the production, analysis and interpretation of oral sources.

As is the practice, international oral history scholars were invited, including Marieta de Moraes Ferreira, president of IOHA, and Rob Perks, oral history curator of the National Sound Archive of the British Museum in London.  Moraes Ferreira spoke on August 14 on “The Uses and Abuses of Oral History,” analyzing the considerable growth of oral history, especially in Latin America.  She addressed the challenges of research in the context of social change in the new millennium.  On August 15, Perks gave the closing address on “The 21st-Century Challenges of Oral History in Great Britain,” evaluating the trajectory of the field over the last forty years.  He noted that initial resistance to the field was followed by a period of strong internal critique, paving the way to a more mature methodology.  Oral history is now widely valued and used not only by historians and sociologists but in a broad range of fields, including psychology, information science, folklore, nursing, and many others.

Organizers agreed that the meeting was a great success.  Opportunities for discussion and exchange are essential to enriching and sharpening a field that has grown steadily and brought long-lasting innovation in methodology.

Mercedes Miguez
Oral History Program Coordinator,
Instituto Histórico de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires

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USA

BEARING PUBLIC WITNESS: DOCUMENTING MEMORIES OF STRUGGLE AND RESISTANCE

St. Louis, Missouri, 17-21 October, 2001.

“Bearing Public Witness: Documenting Memories of Struggle and Resistance,” was the theme for the Oral History Association 2001 annual meeting, October 17-21 in St. Louis.  Reflecting the global nature of the conference theme, over 400 participants hailed from Africa, Latin America, Asia, Australia, the Middle East, and Europe, as well as North America.  The program included numerous sessions focusing on the strategies for documenting individual narratives and collective memories, many of which are in danger of being ignored, erased, or forgotten because of silence and denial.  Other sessions concentrated on the ethical issues of setting standards for collection and dissemination of narratives of trauma and oppression in digital environments, in film, and on stage. The conference theme was particularly timely in light of the events of September 11, 2001 and their aftermath.  Close to 100 people gathered at 8:00 a.m. on Saturday to discuss documentation plans.

Three plenary sessions expanded on different on different aspects of the conference’s themes: an opening plenary addressed the issues of traumatic memories, including their relationship to political activism and to individual and collective healing; a second plenary discussed the challenge of oral history accessibility in the digital age; and the closing plenary considered how oral history might challenge myths and complicate the histories of past political struggles.  Plenary speakers included Temma Kaplan, author of the forthcoming Taking Back the Streets: Women, Direct Democracy, and Memory; Ann Cvetkovich, author of the forthcoming An Archive of Feelings: Trauma, Sexuality, and Lesbian Public Cultures; Gertrude Fester, Commissioner on Gender Equality in South Africa; Stevan Weine, Co-founder and co-director of the Project on Genocide, Psychiatry and Witnessing; Cynthia Allen, Program Coordinator for New York University’s Center for Advanced Technology in Digital Multimedia; Sam Gustman, Executive Director of Technology for Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation; Manning Marable, Founding Director of Columbia University’s Institute for Research in African-American Studies; and Alessandro Portelli of the University of Rome “La Sapienza” and author of numerous works in oral history.

 A dialogue that highlighted the linkages between local, regional, and global developments and concerns marked the 2000 OHA annual meeting in Durham, North Carolina.  Over 500 people participated in the conference, which featured numerous sessions on workers throughout the global economy, a presentation by acclaimed radio producers “The Kitchen Sisters,” an oral history film festival, and musical performances from the region.

 The OHA has become a partner in the Veterans History Project, an initiative authorized by Congress in late 2000, and administered by the American Folklife Center of the Library of Congress.  Not only is this the first oral history project ever authorized by Congress, it represents a massive public history undertaking.  Accordingly, OHA’s role has been to advise on proper standards and training in the development of the project.

Cliff Kuhn
OHA President
Georgia State University

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BRAZIL

ORAL HISTORY DIMENSIONS

Fourth Southeast Brazilian Oral History Association (ABHO) Meeting
November 7-9, 2001

ABHO organized its fourth Southeast meeting at the FIOCRUZ Campus/ Rio de Janeiro. The meeting, coordinated by Tânia Fernandes (ABHO/ Southeast Director), included 117 presentations, divided into 22 different research groups. The program also included one conference (Contemporary History and Biological Weapons), two round tables (Documentary and Oral History;  Oral History, Society and Environment) and three short courses. Two nights of cultural activities completed the program.

Organizing Institutions:
Associação Brasileira de História Oral/ Diretoria Regional Sudeste; Casa de Oswaldo Cruz/ Fiocruz; Centro de Pesquisa e Documentação de História Contemporânea do Brasil (CPDOC/FGV), Laboratório de Estudos do Tempo Presente / UFRJ, Centro Intedisciplinar de Estudos Culturais (CIEC/UFRJ), Laboratório de História Oral e Iconografia (LABHOI / UFF), Mestrado em Memória Social e Documento (MMSD-UNI-RIO)

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From Page to Mouth

New Projects

NEW ZEALAND

Jan Moodie writes: ‘In July 2000 I began a project to examine the way in which the history of a family, it’s traditions and values impact on the lives and life narratives of members of that family today.

‘The interviewees taking part in this project are all descendants of two brothers and their wives, who came to New Zealand in the 1820s as missionaries to the Maori under the auspices of the Church Mission Society.  These brothers lives were not without controversy in New Zealand’s history.  Amongst other things one was instrumental in producing the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840, New Zealand’s founding document of partnership between Maori and the British Crown, and both were active in promoting it to Maori around the country and encouraging them to sign.   Today the treaty is the basis for the recent settlement of Maori land claims, the use of Maori as an official language, racial equity in social policy, and numerous other initiatives.

‘The two families remained in New Zealand and the numerous children either entered the church or became land owners, and were numbered among the gentry of colonial New Zealand.  Several also served as Maori translators.  Five or six generations later there are now several thousand members of the family to be found in all walks of life, although still a significant number are clergy or farmers.

‘Interviews have been conducted with 55 older members of the family.  These interviews are more or less unstructured, taking the form of a free life narrative.  However towards the end of each interview  I raise certain questions for discussion  if these have not already been addressed within the main narrative.  These include memories of and stories about any of their ancestors, family memorabilia they may have in their possession, memories of family reunions, and their views on the Treaty of Waitangi  and biculturalism in New Zealand.
‘In the analysis I am looking at the way family history and values appear to  influence narrative construction  under various categories including  myth, ideology, religious tradition, genealogy, class, and gender.’

I would welcome information regarding  similar projects in any region of the world.   I maybe reached via email:  jjmoodie@wave.co.nz

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RUSSIA

FROM VORONEZH

We would like to note that the membership of the Oral History Circle has increased. New members have begun work on problems of military captivity during the Great Patriotic War in the region of Voronezh. This project involves micro-history, the history of each family.  Finns, Czechs, and Slovaks were participants in the battles in the Voronezh region. They carried out different missions under the instructions of German military headquarters. The project also elaborates the differences among German, Italian and Rumanian occupation regimes. In the first phase of work, the Circle has met with the elder of oral history in Voronezh – Svetlana Murcova, of the Voronezh museum. Murcova was the first to pay attention to the peculiarity of occupation regimes in the region. Circle members have also met with Tatyana Rusanova, descendant of a noble dynasty of doctors that lived during the war and occupation regime in Voronezh.  Each member of the circle has chosen a topic for future investigation.

Yuri Motchalov
buro_vgpu@mail.ru

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SOUTH AFRICA

ORAL HISTORY IN TIMES OF AIDS

In South Africa as elsewhere in the African continent, the number of children affected by AIDS (not to mention those who are HIV positive) is increasing at a rapid pace. These children need financial assistance. But they also need emotional support. They are, or will soon be, affected by the death of their mother or their father, but they do not know how to talk about it. They do not understand what happens. Their memories tend to fade away. This creates a state of confusion which prevents them from developing to their full potential.

This is where the memory boxes can play a role. Memory box is a metaphor. But the term also designates a physical object: a box which can be decorated with photos or drawings and contains the story of the deceased person as well as various objects pertaining to the history of the family. The purpose of the memory boxes is to promote resilience in children of families affected or infected by HIV/AIDS. To achieve this goal the families are encouraged to share stories as a way of keeping alive their memories and facilitating the bereavement process. To collect the memories of the family the methodology of oral history is used.

The Oral History Project (OHP) of the School of Theology, University of Natal is currently conducting a pilot study on the effect of memory boxes on resilience in children. The process is family-centred. Whether the parent is sick or already deceased, the memory facilitators, as the OHP field workers call themselves, meet the family members at their home. This implies that they work in partnership with a community-based organization. In the present case, they work with Sinosizo Home-Based Care, a Catholic organization which runs a HIV/AIDS home-based care programme in fourteen areas of the Durban functional region
Sinosizo's volunteers regularly visit 800 households. Twenty families, that is 2,5% of the total, have been identified for the purpose of the study. All reside in the Durban functional region, some of them as far afield as Stanger. Sixteen are black, three Coloured and one Indian. They all have children, ranging from one to twenty-two years.

By the time this short article is written (October 2001), interviews have been conducted in eleven families. Edited versions of the interviews, with photographs of the family members, past and present, have been handed over to the families. In six cases, the children have created memory boxes.

Three families were removed from the list almost immediately. For two of them the reason was that the mother had died in the meantime and it was found inappropriate then to propose memory boxes to the survivors. In the remaining six families, the process was interrupted for various reasons (opposition of family members, dispersion of the family, stress, financial constraints). Contact is maintained with these families through the Sinosizo volunteers.

It is difficult to evaluate the impact of the memory boxes on the children. The pilot study, in any event, is still incomplete. Judging from the feedback received from the families so far, the memory box methodology can be said to have had positive results in eight families (out of seventeen where more than one visit has taken place). We consider feedback to be positive when the primary caregivers express satisfaction after receiving the visit of the memory facilitators and declare that the interview has improved communication and dialogue among the children and themselves. As far as children are concerned, the act of creating memory boxes seems to indicate that they are eager to retrieve the memories of their parents and therefore own the process. In two cases, the children have written letters to, or about their parents. This also indicates an active participation in the process.

The second phase of the project is already under way. It consists in testing a training programme with various groups of Sinosizo volunteers. Training of community workers and volunteers with no experience in oral history is no easy matter. Simplified methods are experimented with. So far the experience has proved to be very positive. Once trained, the volunteers introduce the methodology of memory boxes in the families which they regularly visit. A number of interviews have already been taken place. Usually the volunteers record the conversations by hand.

For more information contact: Philippe Denis, Oral History Project, University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, South Africa

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USA

WORLD TRADE CENTER ORAL HISTORY PROJECT

The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded Columbia University a $90,000 grant to conduct an oral history project on the World Trade Center attacks of September 11. Over a two-year period, researchers will collect and analyze life-stories of individuals both in New York City and around the country who were affected directly and indirectly by the attack. Called ‘Narrative Networks: The World Trade Center Tragedy’, the project was initiated by Mary Marshall Clark, director of Columbia’s Oral History Research Office and one of two principal investigators on the project, which researchers hope will create a valuable historical resource for future researchers and the public.

‘As oral historians, we know that people make sense of their experiences through stories’, said Clark. ‘We want to give people affected by this tragedy the opportunity to offer their own interpretations of this historical event. Through doing so, we will provide the public and generations of future scholars and researchers, a record that represents, to the fullest extent possible, the uniqueness and diversity of responses to this tragedy.’

Using both video and sound recordings, the researchers will capture more than 300 personal accounts in the immediate aftermath of the tragedy and then conduct follow-up interviews with the same individuals after six months and again after two years. Since the scope of the project will extend beyond New York, Columbia will recruit oral historians across the USA.

Columbia researchers intend to investigate the extent to which individuals‚ life-stories are shaped by the World Trade Center tragedy. Of special interest is how the event emerges as an important turning point. In addition, they hope to understand how narratives of the tragedy are shaped by, and shape understandings of, immigration status, race, social class, and ethnicity.
Also involved in the project as the other principal investigator is Peter Bearman, Director of the Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy (ISERP) and chair of Columbia’s Department of Sociology.  Robert Smith, Assistant Professor of Sociology at Barnard College, an ISERP research fellow, and an affiliate of the Oral History Research Office, is a co-investigator.

‘We hope to understand the ways in which stories of the tragedy were told, transformed, circulated, and shaped the understandings of people, both closely and only distantly involved’, said Peter Bearman. ‘Hundreds of volunteers who have stepped forward to conduct interviews, transcribe data, organize field materials, and help in launching a giant field project in a matter of days’, said Bearman. ‘Because narrative quality decays quickly, the support of the volunteers has meant that we can get into the field quickly, an essential element for project success.’

‘This project represents a wonderful opportunity for Columbia University to participate in a productive and educationally appropriate way to help us understand the reactions of individuals to an unprecedented tragedy’, said Provost Jonathan Cole, provost and dean of faculties at Columbia. ‘We are deeply appreciative that the NSF is able to act so quickly to support this project, which will capture the reactions of survivors of the horrible attack on the World Trade Center and others. The study will have lasting historical value and help those who participate in the study deal with the consequences of this disaster.’

For more information: contact Caroline Ladhani at (212)854-6581 or e-mail CL2059@columbia.edu

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Archive Stories

UNITED KINGDOM

COMMUNITY ARCHIVES

Whose History?
Community archives are a true grassroots activity: locally owned, locally controlled and locally managed. They record the cultural heritage of the community on CD-ROM as a fully searchable, integrated collection of photographs, documents, text reminiscences, oral history recordings and film and video footage.  When mounted on the Web, the use of a common software standard enables all community archives to be searched individually, in sets and and as a whole.  Over the past six years 150 community archive groups have sprung up across the UK, from Aberdeen to Dover and from East Anglia to Belfast, largely through word of mouth. There is no single definition of what constitutes a typical ‘community’; most commonly it is a geographically based group of people with an interest in preserving their community’s cultural heritage, such as a village, small town or neighbourhood within a larger town or city.

Sometimes the community is work-related, such as a group of ex coal miners, steel workers, factory workers etc. It can be a community with a common interest such as local history, folk music or even the local football club. Other communities include schools, sheltered housing schemes and reminiscence groups. But whatever brings them together, the process of creating a community archive meets a common need to record individual stories and to consolidate and celebrate social and cultural identity. As one group member has said:
It pulls the community together, it is very therapeutic for the individual and it does wonders building up a person’s self confidence.

One of the most significant features of community archive projects is that the ownership of the resulting collections remains with the community itself.  Contributors agree the release of copyright in their photographs, documents and recordings for use on a CD-Rom or the Internet, but retain the ownership and rights to the original.  The copyright in the collected archive belongs to the community group, which may exploit it through sales of CD-ROMs and licensing of individual images or recordings for commercial use.

The concept of a community multimedia archive was first developed in 1994 in Batley, WestYorkshire, as part of a Government funded social and economic regeneration programme. Its aim was to enable a community of local people, with a common interest in their local history, to utilise the potential of emerging new technology.

  Gallons Shop 1929   Copyright Batley Community Archive

The Comma database software was developed by a local company, Polkaville Co-operative Ltd, in conjunction with Huddersfield University’s Centre for Database Access Research. It enables photographs to be automatically scanned into a database and then prompts for answers to questions such as when and where a photograph was taken, who is in it and what the picture is about. Stories about the photograph can be attached as ‘text reminiscences’ and relevant oral history recordings (usually 1 or 2 minutes long) can also be added. It is also possible to scan in documents such as letters and maps and to add short video clips, including digitised 8 and 16mm cine film.

All this information is fully searchable, including the names of individuals, local place names, street names as well as dates and thematic searches. Often multiple field searches are made such as ‘1930/women/textile industry. The text reminiscences are fully word searchable making it possible to search for all the stories that mention, for example, the word ‘trams’.
If one picture is worth a thousand words, then a five minute multimedia presentation of existing community archives is worth three weeks talking about them. The demonstration is based on searches of the latest ‘combined’ community archives and shows a number of the key features of the Comma software, including:

Searching by category: Search fields, thumbnails, enlarged photographs, data fields, text reminiscences, Hot Spots.
Searching by Hot Spots
Searching by Date
Searching by Location
Searching by Type – documents, zoom in, zoom out
Free text searching
Oral reminiscences
Video
Editing an archive
Help files

What principles?
The process of creating a community archive can make a positive contribution to community regeneration and capacity building in areas of social and economic deprivation, but equally important is the role of community archives as a rich source of cultural content for public institutions.  However, community determined selections of archive material may be problematic for professionals in terms of their authority and balance of representation. The photographs and associated reminiscences collected by community archive groups are usually domestic and personal in nature. They are often not the kind of material which would normally find its way into the collections of libraries, museums and archives, and, as individual records, are generally of only very local interest.  The value of these records is in their collective representation of broader social themes such as fashion, the role of women, or the history of work in specific – often vanished – industries. As well as the intrinsic interest and merit of their content, the government agenda for social inclusion is becoming a significant driver of interest in community archives.

These objectives state that museums, libraries and archives should:
- make full use of ICT as a means of making their collections more accessible
- identify, consult and involve socially excluded people about meeting their   needs and aspirations
- be a local learning place and champion of the independent learner
- ensure that collections and exhibitions reflect the cultural and social    diversity of the communities served
- form partnerships with other organizations
- develop projects which aim to improve the lives of socially excluded people

Community archives can deliver all the above, and there are exciting examples of successful applications to HLF, SRB and European funds for work with groups in the Kent Coalfields (Dover Museum), Forest of Dean (Dean Heritage Centre) and Northern Ireland (Linen Hall Library/Ulster Peoples College), Wakefield District.  It is hoped that such initiatives will establish ‘best practice’ models of cross-sectoral working which balance the local priorities and sense of ownership of groups with the demands of professional standards and systems.  The latest development for community archives is in a proposed pilot project for CHIN (Canadian Heritage Information Network) called 'Community Memories'.  This project will explore the potential of the community archives approach to capture the oral reminiscences and photographs of a dozen communities in Newfoundland and Labrador.  The projects will be run by a network of community museums who will use the content they gather to create virtual exhibits for the Virtual Museum of Canada.

 Birthday Party, 1950.   Copyright Grimethorpe Community  Archive

What outcomes?
Up until now, the end result of a group’s activities has been a ‘local’ community archive CD-Rom that can be distributed to schools, libraries and community centres. However, recent developments have now made it possible to put the archives on the Internet, which opens up a number of exciting possibilities. It significantly widens the audience that can view a local archive and makes it possible to search across an amalgamated group of archives. For instance, the Wakefield ‘area’ Community Archive is made up of five separate archives but will allow searches to be made across them all, for example, for all the 1948 records of women working in the textile industry.

European funding has enabled the project to be developed across Europe. The Comma software is multilingual, i.e. the database fields can been translated into other languages (currently Danish, Dutch, German and Italian with French planned for the Canadian project). This enables community archives to be created in one language and to be searched in another. The potential of this is realised when archives are amalgamated on the Internet and it becomes possible to search, for example, all the records for 'Fishing' across the database in all languages.

The principal mechanism for the development of community archives in the UK has been the Awards for All Scheme which enables groups to apply for up to £5000 to fund  equipment, software and training. To date, there has been a 100% success rate of community archive groups receiving an Awards for All grant.

The development of a structured network of community archives has reached a critical stage where both formal and informal networks are beginning to emerge. Initially, community groups tend to concentrate on creating their own community archive; it is only when their archive is sufficiently developed that they begin to realise the potential of joining a network to share their experiences and to compare cultural identities. A ‘not for profit’ organization, comm@NET (www.commanet.org) has been established to act as a broker between communities and potential sponsors and other funding agencies, and to manage and run the website which will host all community archives.

Established heritage organizations and others are also beginning to recognise the role of community archives and the rationale of comm@NET. Links have already been developed between comm@NET and Resource, mda, Becta Museum Councils, Archive Councils and Library Associations, Age Concern, the Historical Association, the Workers’ educational Association, U3A, and many others.This is our first venture into the world of Oral History and look forward to developing reciprocal links with the Oral History Society.

For more information contact and Patsy Cullen: chris.levack@geo2.poptel.org.uk, p.cullen@ucrysj.ac.uk

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From Mouth to Page

Books

THE PRE-COLONIAL HISTORY OF TIMOR

Peter Spillett writes from Northern Territory, Australia:
I have recently finished 7 years research in the island of Timor (both east and west) carrying out oral history interviews and recordings. The book tells the story of the 'Pre-Colonial History of Timor' which includes references to the Makassan influence in the island. The stories also relate to the time whenTimor was invaded by the Dutch, Portuguese and Makassans in the early 17th century.

Over 300 interviews have been recorded throughout the island including some of the most remote parts of Timor. Only certain elders of the tribes have authority to recount these stories of the movements of people, intermarriage and battles.

Sometimes a higher form of language is used to convey the stories. Normally these stories would only be told at special ceremonies but now that the young people are leaving the villages in order to study and find work, these stories are no longer being passsed on from father to son.

The book which has plenty of illustrations is to be published by the University Press of the Hasanuddin University, Makassar, Sulawesi Selatan, Indonesia. Hopefully it will be launched early in early 2002.

Address: P.G. Spillett, G.P.O. Box 4646, Darwin, N.T. 0801, Australia. EMAIL: peter.spillett@nt.gov.au

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DIPLOMACY, POLITICS AND FINANCES

Rio de Janeiro, Fundacao Getulio Vargas, 2001.
This book results from a long interview given by the former Brazilian Minister of Economy (1991-1992), the U.S. Ambassador (1986-1991) and professor Marcilio Marques Moreira to CPDOC in 1997 and 1999.  By following the life trajectories of the Interviewees, this book traces a solid picture of world and Brazilian history in the last 50 years,  If interested send e-mail to: Verena@fgv.br

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COMMUNISTS AND TRADE UNIONS IN BRAZIL

Marco Aurelio Santana, São Paulo/Rio de Janeiro, Boitempo/Unirio, 2001.
This book analyses the activity of the Brazilian Communist Party (PCB) within the Brazilian labour movement from 1945 until 1992. Based on written and oral sources the book is divided in two major periods. The first one, from 1945 to 1964, marks the ‘golden age’ of the CP.  It had a strong influence in the most important part of the workers organization, from the workplace to the national level. The following period, from 1964 to 1992, saw the party victimised by military dictatorship, violence and repression, that diminished its strength. In the return of democratic governments in the eighties, the CP could not handle the competition of the so-called new actors who came to the political scene giving different orientation to labour movement.
If interested send e-mail to: abho@bridge.com.br

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ORAL HISTORY/PUBLIC MEMORY VOLUME

CALL FOR CONTRIBUTORS
Co-editors: Linda Shopes (USA) and Paula Hamilton (Australia)
We are seeking contributors for a book of 12 - 15 original essays of approximately 8,500 words in length that investigate how oral history as a particular form of memory work helps shape broader public memory. Specifically, the book will address the practices of oral historians, both interviewers and narrators, as key players in making histories public, redefining community, and creating historical memory in a variety of  forms and media. Each essay is envisioned as both a detailed and reflexive ‘ethnography of practice’ at the local level and also a broader set of reflections upon the way in which the work has affected a group or an individual's historical sensibilities.

Because the intended volume will be broadly international in scope, we would like authors to be explicit about the national, regional, and/or local contexts within which they have been working, including the framing  concepts for public historical work and the social/institutional forms within which the work under consideration has occurred. We welcome proposals from around the world and especially encourage focused, comparative studies. Co-authored articles, with each author writing from a different national  perspective, are also welcomed. Both the proposal and the final essay must be in English. Because we wish the volume to be accessible to a variety of audiences, including oral/public historians working in a variety of contexts and students, we welcome work that is both conceptually sophisticated and written in nonspecialized, jargon-free language.

While we have not yet signed a specific publishing contract, a number of publishers have expressed interest in this volume. Proposals, including identification of the oral history materials/project/product to be discussed and an outline of the argument of the essay and a copy of the author/s' vita, should be sent via e-mail to:
Paula Hamilton - Paula.Hamilton@uts.edu.au and Linda Shopes - lshopes@aol.com  by December 1, 2001. Once we have finalized the contents of the volume, we will pursue a book contract. Assuming that a contract is in place, draft essays will be due July, 2002 and final articles November 1, 2002.

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Journals

ORAL HISTORY:  JOURNAL OF THE ORAL HISTORY SOCIETY
VOL.30 NO.1 2(AUTUMN 2001): HIDDEN HISTORIES

Published by the Oral History Society , c/o Department of History, University
of Essex, Colchester, Essex CO4 3SQ.

CONTENTS
News
Future meetings/Current British Work/News from Abroad/Conferences/Obituary/Letter
Articles
Looking to the Past: the role of oral history research in recording the visual history of Britain’s Deaf Community (Mark Atherton, Dave Russell and Graham Turner)
Dust to Dust: oral testimonies of asbestos-related disease on Clydeside, c 1930 to the present  (Ronald Johnston and Arthur McIvor)
Growing up Alone (Barbara Prynn)
‘They  made  freedom for themselves’; popular interpretations of post-communist discourse in the Czech Republic (Revan Schendler)
Oral History at the extremes of human experience: Holocaust testimony in a museum setting (Tony Kushner)
The Century Speaks: a public history partnership (Rob Perks)
 

ZEITSCHRIFT FÜR BIOGRAPHIEFORSCHUNG UND ORAL HISTORY

A biannual German language journal, now in its fourteenth year of publication. For subscription and editorial details contact Alexander von Plato, Institut fuer Geschichte und Biographie, Liebigstr. 11, D-58511 Luedenscheid, Germany (email: Alxeander.vonPlato@Fernuni-Hagen.de) or visit the homepage: http://www.fernuni-hagen.de/INST_GESCHUBIOG/

Number 1, 2000

The contemporary witness and the historical profession.Remembrance, communicative transmission and collective memory in qualitative history (Alexander von Plato)
Contemporary witness accounts in the light of the scientific understanding of memory (Hans J. Markowitsch)
The oral-history interview as artefact.Some criticisms of investigations based on oral testimony (Harald Welzer)
Ethical Problems in the work with historical witnesses (Almut Leh)
Beginning with the final word: Towards the “truth” of hermeneutical knowledge (Regina Klein)
Wise and courageous: a perfect son. Thoughts on the childhood of Erich Kaestner (Matthias Leder)
The diary of Immanuel David Mauchart recording the first years of life of his daughter, born 1794 (Heidrun Diel)
Project report: An exhibition about the special youth Concentration camps Moringen and Uckermark (Martin Guse)

Number 2, 2000

Above all a question of bearing: testimonies from members of the ‘Bündische’ youth groups of the 1920s. A multi-media approach (Sabiene Autsch)
Between individual and historiographical memory: Nationalsocialism in Autobiographies of German Historians after 1945 (Nicolas Berg)
Switzerland and the Hungarian Revolution from 1956.  Echoes of the revolution in the biographies of selected Swiss individuals (Tamas Kanyo)
“Alsacien, Déserteur!” The war experiences of the Alsatian Peasant Dominik Richert as reflected in his memoirs (Christian Koller)
My great-grandmother. The biography of a 19th Century woman (Renate Wald)
The experience of technology as reflected in biographical narratives (Hans Joachim Schroeder)
 

ORAL HISTORY JOURNAL

Published by the Brazilian Oral History Association (ABHO); No. 4, 2001; Editor: Maria de Lourdes Monaco Janotti
E-mail: mljanott@usp.br

CONTENTS
Articles
Memories from Anzac (Alistair Thomson)
Priests and artisans: Moving narrators (Antonio Montenegro)
Oral history, memory and traumatic history  (Dora Schwarzstein)
Memory and Historiography. Limits and e possibilities of an approach (Márcia Mansor D´Alessio)
The narrative: metaphor and freedom (Olgária Mattos)
The tembé and the relation subject/object in the research (Sara Alonso)
Narrative reason: meaning and memory (Yone de Souza Grossi & Amauri Carlos Ferreira)
Interviews
Marco Aurélio Santana & Verena Alberti - Foreword to the interviews with Mercedes Vilanova and Marieta de Moraes Ferreira.
Marieta de Moraes Ferreira – Interview.
Mercedes Vilanova – Interview.

Book reviews
Social science: new methodological perspectives – the challenge of oral history (Lucília de Almeida Neves)
Crime talks, special segregation and social discrimination (Yara Aun Khoury)
 

HISTORY, ANTHROPOLOGY, AND ORAL SOURCES
Number 26/2001

Social Protest

- Anthropology and democracy: Causality and need (José Antonio G. Alcantud)
- "Workers and women of the collective farm" by Vera Mukhina, 1937 (Dariusz Konstantynów)
- Gender and torture: When women ask men about violence (Raphaëlle Branche)
- Commentary on ‘The Battle of Algiers’ by Gillo Pontecorvo. (J.M. Caparrós Lera)
- Reminiscence and oral history: Parallel universes or common efforts?  (Joanna Bornat)
- Feminist thoughts for public policy: "Women in power toward Beijing' 95"  (Lola G. Luna)
- Experience as invention  (Mercedes Fernández Martorell)
- Street, childhood and adolescence in Salvador de Bahía (Rocío Castro)

Symbolic Crossroads

- The world of the dead in Mapuche stories (Ramiro González Delgado)
- The state and private enterprise in Mapuche life  (Sergio Silva)

Methodology

- Once oral sources, now written  (Ignacio Fernández de Mata)
- Film and historical memory in Colombia  (Hugo Londoño and Edgar Molano)

Editorial Notes
Abstracts-Keywords

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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 – 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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