Talk:Oral history

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Sources[edit]

Took off unsourced tag, because, in addition to the reference in the reference section, there are a ton of references in the external links section. - Jb? 11:40, 17 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

proposed merger with oral history & oral tradition[edit]

  • Don't merge oral history with oral tradition - they are two different things. history is the use of oral tradition, they aren't actually the same thing. Rick. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.38.200.156 (talk • contribs) 23:52, 28 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Don't Merge. It's as simple as the difference between "history" and "tradition". Each is a unique term, commonly used in its own right.--Keefer4 19:43, 7 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • No, no, no the page on oral history is confusing enough without muddling tradition and history any further. The problem in the first place is that the definition of oral history is inaccurate. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.38.176.184 (talk • contribs) 20:54, 7 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • this article is quite poor. It mostly describes 'oral tradition'. Oral history is not "something passed down by word-of-mouth", it is the recorded interviewing of those who experianced certain historical events first-hand by a trained historian. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 151.196.29.69 (talk • contribs) 13:01, 14 February 2007 (UTC
  • What? No. Merger of any of the three topics is a very bad idea. These are distinct topics. Just because they both include the word "oral" and relate to the past in (different) ways ... oral history is people's individual personal histories and recollections of the past. It's an academic discipline. Oral tradition or oral culture is the social tradition of transmission of cultural knowledge within a particular group of people. It's a social practice, not an academic discipline. Oral literature can include recitations of oral culture, but is also about performance art, the art of storytelling, etc. --lquilter 13:23, 14 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Removing the merge tag. Clearly distinct categories and merge-proposer never bothered to explain or articulate a proposal or justification. --lquilter 13:31, 14 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oral history contained a lot of stuff about oral culture, presumably because "oral transmission of history" is one type of oral tradition and "oral history" is an old term for that. I deleted extraneous material from Oral history, moved it to Talk:Oral tradition, explained the distinction on Oral history and linked to Oral tradition.
  • Added a clarifying sentence to the top of Oral tradition that explained that it was different from oral history.
  • Oral literature seems fine to me; I don't see how it would be confused with oral tradition or oral history. The editor who suggested merger said "that's an oxymoron" but it's clearly explained in the brief entry. The article could do with some fleshing out, though.
(cross-posted to all 3 article talk pages) --lquilter 14:15, 14 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

@Lquilter, what you noted having done looks good. I ditto those who are certain that Oral history and Oral tradition are different topics, and then with Lquilter that Oral literature is a legitimate third. Of course in order to write of any one requires some overlap, which can emphasize however what's relevant to each separately.

Lquilter, by now has any meaningful material which was put in limbo NOT been included in one of the relevant articles?

Pandelver (talk) 00:04, 8 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Since this is a point of confusion, I think it would be helpful to add a section or paragraph on how oral history differs from oral tradition. On the Oral tradition page, oral history is defined as an "academic discipline". Is this true? If that is the case, then what are standards around the making of oral history / engaging with it that make it academic? On the topic of oral history more generally, I think it would also be good to add a section on the development of oral history. How has this changed with the advancement of technology and the proliferation of the internet? What is lost and what is preserved? Born digital2 (talk) 02:49, 12 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

External links section[edit]

The external links section is way too long, especially compared to the rest of the article. Remember WP is not a link farm. It should be pared down, but I am not the person to make the judgements. The section could also be organized with subsections. --Blainster 16:32, 23 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I removed the excessive external links tag. There are not that many links and all of these are to government, university, or oral history professional sites. These are proper links and should remain. LarryQ 13:50, 22 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
What they really need, in order not to appear excessive to some eyes, is some organizing, most easily subsections and grouping the entries under them for coherence. Pandelver (talk) 00:07, 8 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

General Cleanup[edit]

I'm going to edit the external links, clean them up, and put them in alphabetical order. I'm also removing the "Storytellers" section since (a) none of the people are actually storytellers, in the oral tradition of storytelling sense of the word, and (b) storytellers should be listed in the wikipedia entry on storytelling, not under oral history. --Dalejarvis (talk) 14:32, 20 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hong Kong Oral History[edit]

I think it'd be helpful to have the External links organized by country. HKU Libraries has a Hong Kong Oral History Archives (http://sunzi1.lib.hku.hk/hkoh/) which should be useful to researchers in the area. Jklai (talk) 09:25, 5 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Vandalism[edit]

This page has a history of minor vandalism. Just undid one. Somebody look out? Lemchesvej (talk) 16:22, 3 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Australia[edit]

I think it would be very useful to have some information of the oral history of Australia added to this page, as well as Africa... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 38.109.160.19 (talk) 19:49, 3 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

oh, you're funny /rolls eyes[edit]

way to turn the first link into "philosophy", xkcd-er. 68.193.112.240 (talk) 19:26, 27 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

External links modified[edit]

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Grammar Fix needed[edit]

Especially in the section on Czech OH, the English is garbled. Kdammers (talk) 15:22, 4 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Testimony as Oral History in South Africa[edit]

I think it will be helpful to include some hearings of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission South Africa. Oral history gives voice to people who are historically invisible. It could be an excellent case to illustrate the value of oral histroy through how it can help people heal from the apartheid. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Thequiche (talk • contribs) 09:39, 8 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I like this idea! What about a section that addresses the use of oral-history in post-conflict locations / situations more broadly? I'm thinking about Cambodia (Khmer Rouge), Rwanda, Timor Leste off the top of my head but this is relevant to so many more places around the world. Born digital2 (talk) 02:54, 12 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Sources[edit]

This page seems to be missing a fair number of sources, and it also has imbalanced information–it would be good if there were more sections on oral history traditions in specific geographies or communities. A section on the particular challenges and benefits of oral history might benefit from some additional information as well, though this has improved in the past few days with additional information about controversies related to oral history and verifiability. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dklionsky (talk • contribs) 08:07, 9 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

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Proofing, Shaping, and Expanding Entry[edit]

Hello, for a course assignment, I identified some areas where this entry could use some improvement. This work will take place over the next few weeks (Feb-Mar 2018). Some pieces I would like to tackle are:

  • General proofreading, especially the Czech translation entry
  • Shaping this with a common Wiki framework as found in more fleshed out entries (i.e. format, sections, etc.)
  • Language: Tagging promotional language and/or clearing it up. Trying to update the intro and make it modern (reference to audio and video tapes needs updating).
  • Resolving the "Organizations" section with "See also> Oral history organizations."
Have you also considered deprecating the rather extensive section on regional oral histories into a section like "Notable Oral History Projects" and then subcategories? One thing that the current structure works against is anything that does not fall into a "national" category. For example, only brief mention of Holocaust testimonies, which are a major area of oral history gathering and present significant areas for preservation work (e.g., Shoah Foundation's projects), which are transnational and not national in scope; likewise, WWII histories might not to be meaningfully grouped by national traditions. The whole point of oral history is to record people's stories, either through structured documentation and/or self-recording, which is supposed to get *away* from the hegemony of nation-states as the major/only factor of a person's identity. (Not that some don't reinforce this, but we should be going for a balanced representation of activities in oral history as a field.) Morskyjezek (talk) 11:13, 1 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I will be sourcing the following to gain an better understanding of Oral History to guide my work. If you have any suggestions, please let me know!

Also looking at the resource on fieldwork & oral history that the Library of Congress provides may be useful. For example, https://www.loc.gov/folklife/edresources/ed-trainingdocuments.html & https://www.loc.gov/folklife/edresources/ed-cultdocresources.html. Morskyjezek (talk) 11:13, 1 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]


I'll read/review intros from the following sources:

  • Doing oral history : a practical guide
  • The oral history manual
  • Oral history : an interdisciplinary anthology
  • Handbook of oral history
  • So They Understand: Cultural issues in Oral History (plus Sorting out oral tradition and oral history, Gathering to tell stories: the neglected genre in oral history)
  • Women's Words : The Feminist Practice of Oral History (plus A feminist frame for the oral history interview)

In look for resources, there are many interesting oral history books. Perhaps I can create a reading list for further reading and/or examples. I would definitely like to try to add an audio clip, as well.

Best to all, Lc.umd (talk) 02:52, 14 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

These seem like good directions! Morskyjezek (talk) 11:13, 1 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Below is my proposed restructure of the Oral History page. I kept the number from the current structure so you can trace where I plan to move the entries.

Contents
1] Growth and Development

  • Folklore roots and ordinary people [admittedly U.S.-focused]
  • Emergence around the world (post-repressive political regime)
  • 2 In Europe
  • 2.1 Great Britain and Ireland
  • 2.2 In Italy
  • 2.3 In post-Soviet/Eastern bloc states
  • 2.3.1 Belarus oral history
  • 2.3.2 Czech oral history & 2.3.2.1 Projects
  • 2 In the Middle East
  • 5 In Asia
  • 5.1 Oral history in China
  • 5.2 Oral history in Southeast Asia
  • .4 In Spain

2] Academia and Institutions
3] Legal interpretation
4] Methods
5] Organizations

  • 10.1 Oral history organizations

6] Oral History in Popular Culture
7] Resources

  • 9.1 Journals
  • 9.2 Listserves
  • 10.4 Ethical Guidelines

8] Controversies
9] Notable Oral Historians

  • 10.2 Prominent oral historians
  • 5.1.1 [Asia] Notable oral historian

10] Notable Oral History Projects

  • StoryCorps
  • Holocaust memories

11] References
12] Further reading
13] External links

From here, further rearranging can be done such as moving the Italy entry under Notable Oral Historians since the content is essentially about Alessandro Portelli. And will look to do other similar work. Lc.umd (talk) 03:08, 8 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Your proposed restructuring makes sense, particularly because it helps to better contextualize oral history in the context of its practice and contributions to Western conceptions of history. Since many major projects have come from this view of the discipline, it is relevant. For your first subject heading, you might consider "History" or "Background". I think you might also want to place the references at the bottom of the article. At the end, you might want to place the Resources section in an "Additional Resources" subsection at the end, that section could include major journals, tools, projects, organizations, links, etc. Morskyjezek (talk) 14:44, 12 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Digital Preservation, Archaeology, and More Sources[edit]

I am also in a course with lc.umd and will be helping edit the article. I would like to edit the block quotes from the Columbia Encyclopedia and make that information more concise. I also want to add more sources and information about countries outside of the US. I noticed there is not really any information on how oral history is preserved digitally - do you all think this would be relevant to the article? Also from my research, I have seen that oral history tends to be useful for archaeology. Do you all think a section on how oral history relates on archaeology would be helpful/relevant? The resources I have so far to learn about this information are below.

Kavanagh, W. (2000). The past on the line : the use of oral history in the construction of present-day changing identities on the Portuguese-Spanish border. Borders And Borderlands : An Anthropological Perspective, 30(2), 47-56.

Lange, K. (2014). Producing (tribal) history : gendered representations of genealogy and warfare in northern Syria. Nomadic Peoples, 18(2), 34-52.

Larson, M. A. (2016). "The Medium Is the Message": Oral History, Media, and Mediation. Oral History Review, 43(2), 318-337. doi:10.1093/ohr/ohw052

Matusiak, K. K., Tyler, A., Newton, C., & Polepeddi, P. (2017). Finding access and digital preservation solutions for a digitized oral history project. Digital Library Perspectives, 33(2), 88-99. doi:10.1108/DLP-07-2016-0025

Mullins, P. 1. (2014). The rhetoric of things : historical archaeology and oral history. Historical Archaeology, 48(1), 105-109.

Webster, J. 1. (2014). The artifact as interviewer : experimenting with oral history at the Ovenstone miners' cottages site, Northumberland. Historical Archaeology, 48(1), 11-29.

Mreid123 (talk) 21:59, 15 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

These sources all look good. Your main challenge may be in synthesizing the topic of archaeology and oral history - can you offer a brief characterization of this area, when it's started, and the major contributions of this as an activity? That will be a helpful frame to introduce this and why its important. Morskyjezek (talk) 11:16, 1 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Too Many Projects Listed in this Article[edit]

The section on national traditions of oral history does not seem to be an accurate representation of the field. I would suggest that this section be moved into a subheading like "Notable Oral History Projects" that can contain subheadings on topics (e.g., Holocaust testimonies, Storycorps) and brief explanations of the projects. Additional subheads could replicate the tree of regional/national projects now listed. Morskyjezek (talk) 11:22, 1 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment[edit]

This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Mreid123, Lc.umd.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 05:47, 17 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment[edit]

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 28 May 2019 and 23 July 2019. Further details are available on the course page. Peer reviewers: Ousainou Adeniyi.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 01:56, 18 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Africa[edit]

I notice Africa is left out of this article, which is surprising because it contains some of the best and most recent examples.

  • [1] Vansina describes African societies as 'oral civilisations' as opposed to 'literate civilisations'. The paragraph in the lead that labels oral history as primitive is a clear example of academic racism in my view.
  • [2] General History of Africa: Voume 1, chapter 2: The place of history in African society
  • Also see Griot. In West Africa their position was hereditary and one of their roles was to memorise their peoples' history and serve as an advisor in the king's court, where they would be expected to turn their knowledge into lessons. There are more examples across the continent, especially in the Great Lakes shown in the Empire of Kitara article.
I'm happy to add a section for Africa (perhaps have it most prominent?) however I'm not knowledgeable about this and I don't want to mess around this article without speaking to others first. If I send a few more sources, would someone else be willing to write it? If not I'm happy to write a draft and then put it here for approval.

@Rjensen, Born digital 2, Lc.umd, Mreid123, Dklionsky, Espoo, and Morskyjezek: Alexanderkowal (talk) 18:33, 10 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I can't write the section but i have some suggestions: 1) Gunner, Liz. "Africa and orality." The Cambridge history of African and Caribbean literature 1 (2004): 1-18. online at https://www.academia.edu/download/49907532/Africa_and_Orality_in_Irele_and_Gikandi_eds_2003.pdf 2) Vansina, Jan. "Once upon a time: Oral traditions as history in Africa." Daedalus (1971): 442-468. online at https://www.jstor.org/stable/20024011 (I can email a copy) 3) Irwin, Paul. Liptako speaks: History from oral tradition in Africa. Princeton University Press, 2014. https://www.google.com/books/edition/Liptako_Speaks/Pcv_AwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=oral+history+africa&pg=PP1&printsec=frontcover and 4) Field, Sean. Oral history, community, and displacement: Imagining memories in post-apartheid South Africa. Springer, 2012. review of important book by Sean Field at https://core.ac.uk/reader/157781040 --good luck! Rjensen (talk) 23:36, 10 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Rjensen Thank you, I'll start working on it.
Is the introduction correct? Doesn't the title better match "Oral historiography", the study of oral history, rather than "Oral history", the practice of retaining/preserving history orally?
This article appears to be about the academic discipline. Perhaps the issue is that oral history has obtained two meanings. I do think it is worth keeping this article about the academic discipline, which I can add a section summarising 'General History of Africa: Volume 1, Oral tradition and its methodology' which is about the study of African oral history, however a new article should probably be created which focuses on oral history as the practice of preserving history orally (different to recording sound in modern times), which is a subset of oral tradition.
I do think the title of this article should be changed, however begrudgingly not if the subject of this article is only ever referred to as oral history. Alexanderkowal (talk) 20:31, 12 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps changing the title to "Oral history (recordings)" supposedly once the other article is completed? Alexanderkowal (talk) 20:35, 12 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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