Articles read:
Mobilising memory: The case of Iraqi Christian diaspora in England by Niveen Kassen and Beyond Individual/ Collective Memory: Women’s Transactive Memories of Food, Family and Conflict by Graham Smith
Kassen’s work was read in order to give feedback to her and Smith’s work was an appropriate partner for the work.
Kassen like me is not from an oral history background and it was clear that because of this some people struggled seeing the work as an oral history paper. It had very little oral history references and Kassen had only conducted group interviews, which is not the clubs favourite. To her, her study was a good opportunity for an oral history project. But it did not stick to the rules. However it started the conversation around one of my favourite oral history topics – Group .v. Individual interviewing.
Kassem’s work, I found illustrated the power of group interviews. The project was based around the collective trauma that the Iraqi Chirstians had experienced and how they, through memory and storytelling were using this to create an identity. These stories and memories are used to write the narrative of remembrance. The group decides how these stories need to remember, which is why oral historians do not always agree with this group method. The group interviews are heavily influenced by performance and group pressure and therefore the stories told are not always true. But the stories are still important because it is what the group wants to tell. It’s their identity.
However, there are pitfalls here. As Graham pointed out a group can start to create a mono-memory. He used the example of the war in Britain being viewed as a moment of British excellence, due to the fact that those still alive were probably young at the time and therefore had more fun than the older generation (especially in the case of women.) We, therefore, need to keep this collective memory in check, keep it updated, and also be reminded of the stories told at the beginning of the memory by those who were closer to the reality.
This however has to happen in all cases of oral history interviews as both a single person or a group cannot represent a whole people.
P.S.
It is important to note that the experience of group interviews is probably more fun and community building than individual interviews. It might be slow but it is more fun.
