This presentation is on oral history based on the knowlegde of professional lectures of Fiji National University

1. Oral historiography

2. WHAT IS ORAL HISTORY?
 Information which comes from interviews by
historians with people who have taken part in
historical events.
 Oral history is becoming a popular means of
obtaining information about the lives of ordinary
people.
 In Africa, Asia and the Pacific, people of a
generation born during pre-literate times are
interviewed and their memories become the basis
of history.

3.  What do you think when you hear the words “oral
history”?
 Many define oral history as spoken stories about things
that happened in the past.
 But confusion creeps in when we begin to examine the
definition.
 Are family reminiscences oral history?
 What about oral traditions? Or journalists’ stories
about past events?
 What is the difference between each of these types of
narratives and oral history? Is there a difference?
 Yes, there is, and this manual will help you learn
 about those differences and how to master oral history
 methodology.

4. Oral Literature
 The Ugandan scholar Pio Zirimu introduced the term
orature in an attempt to avoid an oxymoron, but oral literature
remains more common both in academic and popular writing
 Orature means something passed on through the spoken word,
and because it is based on the spoken language it comes to life
only in a living community. Where community life fades away,
orality loses its function and dies. It needs people in a living
social setting
 Pre-literate societies, by definition, have no written literature,
but may possess rich and varied oral traditions—such as folk
epics, folklore, proverbs and folksong—that effectively
constitute an oral literature. Even when these are collected and
published by scholars such as folklorists and
paremiographers(those who study of the collection and writing
of proverbs), the result is still often referred to as "oral
literature".

5.  Literate societies may continue an oral tradition -
particularly within the family (for example bedtime
stories) or informal social structures. The telling of
urban legends may be considered an example of oral
literature, as can jokes and also oral poetry including
slam poetry which has been a televised feature on
Russell Simmons' Def Poetry; performance poetry is a
genre of poetry that consciously shuns the written
form

6. Oral History
 Oral history is the collection and study of historical
information about individuals, families, important events,
or everyday life using audiotapes, videotapes, or
transcriptions of planned interviews.
 These interviews are conducted with people who
participated in or observed past events and whose
memories and perceptions of these are to be preserved as
an aural record for future generations.
 Oral history strives to obtain information from different
perspectives and most of these cannot be found in written
sources. Oral history also refers to information gathered in
this manner and to a written work (published or
unpublished) based on such data, often preserved in
archives and large libraries

7. Oral History
 The term is sometimes used in a more general sense to
refer to any information about past events that people
who experienced them tell anybody else, but
professional historians usually consider this to be oral
tradition.

8. THE IMPORTANCE OF ORAL
TRADITION AS AN INSTRUMENT
OF HISTORY
 Absence of a written language makes oral
tradition the most important form of
transmission of knowledge, skills and
information.
 A good memory is a very valuable asset and
society gives respect and prestige to people who
have the role of memorising huge chunks of
information, e.g., priests.

9. DISADVANTAGES OF ORAL
TRADITIONS
 They can be stolen and abused by outsiders without
benefit to those who own the histories.
 Lack of linear chronology – no dates or western
historical time-frame.
 The stories may possibly change over time.
 Bias: information that threatens people in power may
be suppressed and forgotten, i.e., oral traditions may
exclude the views of people who are opposed to those
in power or the views of the poor and powerless.
 Oral traditions may die with their possessors when
younger people refuse to learn the knowledge.

10. ADVANTAGES OF ORAL
TRADITIONS
 Oral traditions are sources of information that Pacific
islanders possess and control in their reconstruction of the
past and the present.
 In this reconstruction, they provide another side of history
which imperial histories of the islands often ignored.
 Visitors gain the opportunity to learn more about ‘local’
perceptions.
 Visitors gain a sense of reassessing values or prejudices.
 Pacific Islanders have the opportunity to take advantage of
the lessons of their past in order to control their present
and future.
 Pacific Islanders gain power and unity from the histories.

11. Oral historiography
The term oral historiography is relatively
new;
This does not mean that oral histories have
been practiced only recently;
There are many that argued that oral
historiography is as old as history itself.
And that it was the first history method
invented and practiced since the ancient
days…

12. Oral historiography
Herodotus (in Ancient Greece) conducted
interviews to gather information to write
about Greek-Persian wars (2500 BP);
Another Greek historian, Thucydides, also
interrogated many eyewitnesses of the
Peloponnesian War (Greek civil war;
aprox. 2400 BC)

13. Herodotus and Thucydides

14. Oral historiography
In fact, until the 19th Century, most historians
relied on oral evidence/sources to write their
books;
Until then, historians thought that written
documents should be but one source among
many to be used;
Many historians at that time wanted to
counterbalance the evidence of official
written documents with popular oral
traditions;

15. Oral historiography
The most famous French historian of the 19th
Century, Jules Michelet, argued that no history
book was complete without oral evidence;
According to him, oral traditions were based
on the voice of common people (it gave
accounts ‘from below’);
Therefore, it balanced the official state
narratives (coming from ‘above’);

16. Oral historiography
For Jules Michelet, oral evidence was what
“remained generally scattered in the
mouths of the people, which everybody
said and repeated, peasants, townsfolk, old
men, women, even children”

17. Oral historiography
 For Jules Michelet, oral evidence was what
“remained generally scattered in the mouths of the people,
which everybody said and repeated, peasants, townsfolk,
old men, women, even children”
 Like most historians of the time, Michelet trained and
skilled at listening, and drawing an informant out.
 But, starting in the 19th Century, oral sources lost prestige.
Why?

18. Oral historiography
 The lost of prestige of oral history in the 19th Century is
related to the rise of Rankean historiography;
 Ranke declared that history should follow the scientific
model;
 History had to be objective, universal and empirical
(based on observation and experience);
 As a result, Ranke argued that historians should use of
written, archival sources;
 To Rankeans, oral evidence was not a reliable source

19. The key elements of oral history are the
essential framework that guides oral history
practitioners.
 Careful attention to copyright and other legal and
ethical issues
 A structured, well-researched interview format
 A controlled, recorded interview setting
 Collection of firsthand information
 Probing follow-up questions that seek depth and detail
 Use of high-quality recording equipment
 Adherence to careful processing techniques
 Provisions for making the interviews available to
others at an accessible repository

20. Brief history of oral historiography
In the past (before humans invented written
languages), all histories were oral histories;
But not only history was remembered orally;
But everything else in societies: laws, crafts
and skills, the time and season, speeches,
transactions, etc…
Eminent oral historian Jan Vansina has
studied the social importance of oral
traditions in African cultures

21. Brief history of oral historiography
 In many African cultures, people are trained since a
very young age to keep and pass down the collective
memory;
 Oral traditions place a huge importance on
mnemotechnics (practices and techniques that
aid a person’s memory)
 “ In Africa, when an old man dies, it's a library
burning.“ Hampâté Bâ
 As a result, oral histories are very reliable systems
for handing down information from generation to
generation with a minimum of distortion

22. Brief history of oral historiography
Societies based on oral traditions emphasize:
1- the importance of songs;
2- of versed/rhymed information (poetry)
3- group testimony on ritual occasions;
4- open public debates on community issues;
5- specialized schools for teaching traditional
lore (information passed from person to
person by word of mouth);

23. Brief history of oral historiography
All of these practices help to preserve
exact texts through the centuries;
In places where oral traditions
prevails, they substitute legal
documents, constitutions and/or
sacred books;
the carriers oral traditions become
specialized officials in many African

24. Oral historiography in Rwanda
 The genealogists ( abacurahwenge) are
responsible to remembering the lists of nobles
(particularly kings and queen mothers);
 the memorialists ( abateekerezi) , should
remember the most important events of the
various kingdoms ;
 the rhapsodists (abasizi) took care of the
reputation of the kings (great feats, works, etc);
 Lastly, the abiiru , held the memory of secrets
of each dynasty.

25. Oral historiography in Rwanda
“ I teach kings the history of their
ancestors so that the lives of the
ancients might serve them as an
example, for the world is old, but
the future springs from the past”
Rwandan memorialist

26. Griots and oral history in Africa
 Griot is the word used to refer to
Africans who are at the same time
historian, storyteller, poet musician.
They are responsible for safeguarding
the oral tradition of a community;
Because of their importance, their are
considered a community leaders;
Their are often advisers to high
politicians

27. Oral historiography
But oral history bearers are not restricted to
the African continent;
Many other cultures also have their versions,
such as:
The Scandinavian skald (poets who
remembered the stories and feats of north
European kingdoms)
The bards (who performed a similar history-
telling roles in Wales)
Contemporary rappers…

28. Oral historiography
In Western universities, oral history began
to lose prestige in the 19th Century;
As mentioned, because of Rankean
historiography, most historians placed a
central importance on written sources;
Nonetheless, there has been a revival of
oral historiography during the 20th
century.
Why?

29. Revival of oral historiography
Critique of Rankean historiography (its
limitations; its elitism: “history from above”)
Decolonization of the world (new countries
wanted to tell non-Eurocentric histories)
Civil rights movements of the 1960s (women,
Afro-Americans wanted to tell their own
histories “from below”)
De-colonial-Indigenous movements (attempts
to create histories with non-Western
approaches)

30. Revival Oral historiography
History changed: so did the writing of history
(historiography);
Excluded/oppressed/marginalised groups
wanted to tell their own histories…
But written-official sources hardly had any
information about Afro-descendants, women,
gays, lesbians, Indigenous groups…
Oral historiography became a path for them to
tell their histories

31. Oral historiography method
From the Oral History Association
http://www.oralhistory.org;
Oral history methodology is
transdisciplinary;
That is, it based on a number of academic
disciplines, including history, anthropology,
law, journalism, and psychology
Their interview styles contain a number of
strengths and weaknesses

32. Oral historiography method
the skilled oral historian should be
prepared to use the expertise pioneered by
each of these disciplines!
Oral history is related to “the art of
interviewing”
Each of these disciplines (history,
anthropology, law, journalism, and
psychology ) has enriched the interview
process

33. Oral history project 3 phases:
1- preliminary research;
2- writing a treatment;
3- completing the interview
process.

34. Preliminary Research (1st phase)
1.1 Literature search: Identify and
research existing secondary and
primary historical records.
1.2 Prepare an historical file
containing materials from sources
relating to the life experiences of
the subjects to be interviewed

35. Preliminary Research (1st phase)
1.3 Biographical file. Prepare a
biographical file for each subject to
be interviewed
 it should include all personal details
of the interviewed;
If possible, include newspaper
articles, book reviews, journal
articles about him/her

36. Preliminary Research (1st phase)
1.4 Based on this research, determine the
order the subjects should be interviewed
1.5 Contact the subject personally, by
telephone or email;
To explain the purpose and scope of the
project for him or her
To make an appointment for an overview
interview

37. Designing a treatment (2nd phase)
2.1 Conduct an Overview Interview.
 This is a general session, lasting no more than an hour;
 the questions should be general in scope, and directed only
to the subject's personal experiences.
 The objective is to define the subject's involvement in the
issues you are investigating,
 and to identify those areas where he or she can shed new
light on the topic or issue being studied.

38. Designing a treatment (2nd phase)
2.2 Writing a Treatment.
 Based on your preliminary research and overview
Interview, write a treatment for your oral history
project.
 The treatment contains a list of the new and specific
topics to be covered in the following interviews;
 The treatment is given to the subject before the
start of the interview process;
 it helps the subject prepare for each recording
session;
 and enhances the accuracy of the testimony while

39. completing the interview process
(3rd phase)
 3.1 The interviews should be conducted at a site selected
by the subject
 Usually their residence-and, if at all possible, in a room
away from the telephone, television (they interfere with the
quality of the recording)
 Ideally, the interview should not exceed 60 minutes, and
there should never be more than one session per week;
 After the completion of each interview, you sent a copy and
transcription of interview to the subject

40. Tips for historians-Interviewers
1. Establish eye contact. LISTEN! LISTEN! LISTEN!
2. Be non-judgmental. Don't let your research show.
3. Create a non-threatening, relaxed environment.
4. Ask questions that require more than a "yes" or "no“
answer.
5. Ask one question at a time.
6. Ask brief questions.
7. Start with non-controversial questions, and save the
delicate ones, if there ate any, until later in the
interview.
8. Do not let brief periods of silence bother you?

41. Tips for historians-Interviewers
9. Do not worry if your questions are not as beautifully phrased, as
you would like them to be for posterity.
10. Do not interrupt a good story because you have thought of a
question, or because your narrator is straying from your planned
outline.
11. Try to establish at important points in the interview where the
narrator was or what his or her role was in the event. (This will
enable you to determine how much is eyewitness information
and how much is based on reports of others.)
12. Do not challenge accounts you think may be inaccurate.
13. Try to conduct the interview with only one narrator present.