As a method, oral history's origins lie in a commitment to challenge, reveal and give voice to those disempowered, misrepresented, or simply missed out of official, dominant accounts of the past. In this paper, we link the memories of a group of South Asian overseas doctors, working in an elite profession with a distinctly non-elite group of patients, to an earlier set of archived interviews with the founders of the geriatric specialty. Our analysis identifies muted voices, generates recognition, and acknowledges ways of understanding and using the polyphony of difference. We argue that the value of reusing archived oral history data lies in the possibility for multiple interpretations of old and new data, and with this, new ways of hearing and listening to voices in interviews. Read the fully story and download the paper here.
Author: ohadmin
Cold at Mt Stromlo
Atop exposed Mt Stromlo on Wednesday for the launching of the Mt Stromlo Interactive Heritage Trail an icy breeze tousled this columnist's flaxen locks. One fell to wondering where and what is the coldest, bleakest place in our sometimes Siberian city? Read more about the history of this cold place here.
Hot Modernism
When most people think of Brisbane architecture, they usually picture a Queenslander: high-set, timber-and-corrugated iron houses that are ideally suited to subtropical conditions. Modernism fits into that picture awkwardly, as if an intruder. For full story click here.
Ian Thorpe’s coming out – does it matter?
Shirleen Robinson says –
Along with a team of other academic researchers and the National Library of Australia, I am involved with the Australian Lesbian and Gay Life Stories oral history project. We are interviewing 60 gay men and lesbian women across Australia in order to investigate what it has been like to live a gay or lesbian life at a time when social attitudes towards homosexuality have shifted significantly. For full story click here.
Australian HIV/AIDS Crisis
As part of the 2014 International AIDS Conference, taking place at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre this month, the University of Melbourne is convening an AIDS ‘Witness Seminar’, an opportunity to capture testimony from several individuals who were influential during the height of the AIDS crisis, and reflect on the critical role of government and academic institutions in determining and communicating policy at that time. For full story click here.
Tamarama Surf Life Saving Club
The Tamarama Surf Life Saving Club story, as told by its passionate old guard of 26 life members, has been committed to film. In the hands of Tama’s resident historian Philippa Ardlie what started as an attempt to record an oral history of the surf club snowballed into a full-blown documentary – A Way of Life. For full story, click here.
Exxon Valdez Oral History
The Exxon-Valdez Oil Spill is the subject of a new oral history project by the University of Alaska-Fairbanks. KDLG’s Chase Cavanaugh has more on how the project got started and what perspectives it can offer on the incident. For full story click here.
Fishing Tales from Maine
The Maine Coast Fishermen’s Association has preserved some of those fish tales through its Oral History Initiative, a multimedia presentation opening Wednesday at Harpswell Heritage Land Trust. Read the full article with links to videos here.
Memory & History by Bridget Brereton
"The outbreak of World War 1—the events of July and August 1914—is being commemorated in this centenary year, and for the next four years, there will be events marking the various episodes in this terrible conflict. But the history of the war can now only be written from written sources." To read the full article which argues for the importance of oral history, click here.
Living with Schizophrenia
The Oral History Review on OUPblog podcast is back! Today’s episode features OHR contributors Drs. Linda Crane and Tracy McDonough answering OHR Managing Editor Troy Reeves’s questions about the Schizophrenia Oral History Project and their article, “Living with Schizophrenia: Coping, Resilience, and Purpose,” which appears in the most recent Oral History Review. – See more and listen here.