A zoom workshop on 27/10/20.
The oral historians are practiced in interviewing. They have methods and set ups that THEY prefer when they are in the interviewing space. But those being interviewed are often completely new to this world. The interviewing space belongs to both parties equally. Or at least it should. Would then not be more beneficial to build the interviewing space together? Factors like environment and technology can be plan and decided on together, which hopefully will result in an interviewing space that is safe and comfortable for both parties to share openly (with minimal technological hiccups). This idea of building the interview space before the interview works together with another idea that was touched on – follow up chats. The de-assembling of the interview space is just as important as the assembling of the space. It helps develop the since of ownership over personal histories that oral history holds in such high regard.
The majority of the conversation was about how to conduct interviews at distance and the pros and cons of technologies necessary for this venture. One of the things I have concluded from this particular topic is that we talk about technology and people’s literacy in technology in very simplified terms. It’s things like “Older people cannot use Zoom” “I think people are less comfortable with screens” “I think people talk better over the phone” etc. What ‘people’ want differs a lot, however there was one thing people did agree on, that they (the interviewers and oral historians) preferred to do face-to-face interviews because it was more – fun. So, the ‘people’ have a diverse sets of needs but interviewers know exactly what they want, which is not really surprising as one person pointed out because the interviewers have done this many times where as the ‘people’ aka the interviewees probably have never been in a situation like this before.
The building of interview spaces allows the interviewer to explore different methods of interviewing, like walking interviews where the interviewee is able to immerse themselves into the historically relevant environment. Or using alternative recording methods like cassettes simply because the interviewee knows how these work. It does require viewing recording as not something that solely holds content but as an artefact/object with a physical history, that reveals the context of its creation. After all oral history is history created in the present
Oral history as a post-COVID tool
The idea of using oral history for political reasons is something I have talked about a lot. Unsurprisingly it the idea that it could be used as a tool for rebuilding relations after COVID came up several times. I think the key thing oral history can offer a rebuilding world is the principle of listening. People just need to listen. (But as oral history archives prove its REALLY hard to do that sometimes.)