Sangster, J. (1994). ‘Telling our stories: feminist debates and the use of oral history.’Women's
History Review 3.1: 5-28
The case for oral history: "The topics potentially addressed through oral history; the possibilities of putting women's voices at the centre of history and highlighting gender as a category of analysis; and the prospect that women interviewed will shape the research agenda by articulating what is of important to them; all offer challenges to the dominant ethos of the discipline." p.5
Oral history "it is also a methodology directly informed by interdisciplinary feminist debates about our research objectives, questions, and use of the interview material." p.6
"Asking why and how women explain, rationalise and make sense of their past offers insight into the social and material framework within which they operated, the perceived choices and cultural patterns they faced, and the complex relationship between individual consciousness and culture." p.6
Oral History and the Construction of Women's Memories
Problems with oral history: "essentially unmediated" p.7
"the complicated questions of how memory is constructed" p.7
"to what extent oral histories can ever reveal the objective experience of people, and whether oral histories should be seen as expressions of ideologies - whether dominant, submerged, oppositional - given to us in the form of personal testimony." p.7
"Class, race and ethnicity... create significant differences in how we remember and tell our lives: in some instances, these influences overshadow gender in the construction of memory." p.7
"Women who were more class conscious, militant trade unionists did not hesitate to criticise managers and they presented workplace conditions in a more critical light than other workers." p.8
"recent writing on oral history draws heavily on poststructuralist theory to explore narrative form and the way in which subjectivity is created" p.8
"Revelations may also come from silences and omissions in women's stories." p.9
"Understanding the ideological context may help to unravel the apparently contradictory effects of ideology and experience." p.10
Ethical Dilemmas: for historians too
"the interview is a historical document created by the agency of both the interviewer and the interviewee." p.10
"are we ignoring the uncomfortable ethical issues involved in using living people as a source for our research?" p.11
"While a detached objectivity may be impossible, a false claim to sisterhood is also unrealistic." p.11
"I gained access to women's memories not as a friend, but as a professional historian." p.11
"We can honour feminist ethical obligations to make our material accessible to the women interviewed, never to reveal confidences spoken out of the interview, never to purposely distort or ridicule their lives, but in the last resort, it is our privilege that allows us to interpret, and it is our responsibility as historians to convey their insights using our own" p.12
"if historians cannot study women of different backgrounds who have less power, we may be reduced to writing autobiography." p.12
"does our concern with interviewing women from other backgrounds sometimes take on a condescending tone?" p.13
"we need to continually analyse the interview as an interactive process, examine the context of the interview, especially inherent power imbalances, and always evaluate our own ethical obligations as feminists to the women we interview." p.13
Theoretical Dilemmas
"Since the mid-1980's, oral historians have increasingly examined language "as the invisible force that shapes oral texts and gives meaning to historical events"." p.13 (G. Etter-Lewis (1991) Reclaiming in Gluck & Patai (Eds) Women's Words, p.44
"Reading our interviews on many levels will encourage us to look for more than one discursive theme and for multiple relations of power based on age, class, race and culture as well as gender." p.14
"Privilege is not negated simply by inclusion of other voices, or by denial of our ultimate authorship and control." p.14
"Exploring and revaluing women's experience has been a cornerstone of feminist oral history, but the current emphasis on differences between women - in part encouraged by post-structuralist writing - has posed the dilemma of whether we can write across the divides of race, class and gender about other women's experiences, past or present." p.15
"is experience itself a construction of the narratives available to us in our culture?" p.15
"While it is important to analyse how someone constructs an explanation for their life, ultimately there are patterns, structures, systemic reasons for those constructions which must be identified to understand historical causality." p.15
Conclusion
"an emphasis on language and narrative form has enhanced our understanding of oral history" p.22
There are still "dangers of emphasising form over context, or stressing deconstruction of individual narratives over analysis of social patterns, of disclaiming our duty as historians to analyse and interpret women's stories." p.22
"Locating experience... should remain one of our [feminist oral historians] utopian goals." p.23
"Negating an understanding of experience as a 'lived reality' for women carries with it the danger of marginalising and trivialising women's historical voices and their experiences (however varied) of oppression" p.23
The case for oral history: "The topics potentially addressed through oral history; the possibilities of putting women's voices at the centre of history and highlighting gender as a category of analysis; and the prospect that women interviewed will shape the research agenda by articulating what is of important to them; all offer challenges to the dominant ethos of the discipline." p.5
Oral history "it is also a methodology directly informed by interdisciplinary feminist debates about our research objectives, questions, and use of the interview material." p.6
"Asking why and how women explain, rationalise and make sense of their past offers insight into the social and material framework within which they operated, the perceived choices and cultural patterns they faced, and the complex relationship between individual consciousness and culture." p.6
Oral History and the Construction of Women's Memories
Problems with oral history: "essentially unmediated" p.7
"the complicated questions of how memory is constructed" p.7
"to what extent oral histories can ever reveal the objective experience of people, and whether oral histories should be seen as expressions of ideologies - whether dominant, submerged, oppositional - given to us in the form of personal testimony." p.7
"Class, race and ethnicity... create significant differences in how we remember and tell our lives: in some instances, these influences overshadow gender in the construction of memory." p.7
"Women who were more class conscious, militant trade unionists did not hesitate to criticise managers and they presented workplace conditions in a more critical light than other workers." p.8
"recent writing on oral history draws heavily on poststructuralist theory to explore narrative form and the way in which subjectivity is created" p.8
"Revelations may also come from silences and omissions in women's stories." p.9
"Understanding the ideological context may help to unravel the apparently contradictory effects of ideology and experience." p.10
Ethical Dilemmas: for historians too
"the interview is a historical document created by the agency of both the interviewer and the interviewee." p.10
"are we ignoring the uncomfortable ethical issues involved in using living people as a source for our research?" p.11
"While a detached objectivity may be impossible, a false claim to sisterhood is also unrealistic." p.11
"I gained access to women's memories not as a friend, but as a professional historian." p.11
"We can honour feminist ethical obligations to make our material accessible to the women interviewed, never to reveal confidences spoken out of the interview, never to purposely distort or ridicule their lives, but in the last resort, it is our privilege that allows us to interpret, and it is our responsibility as historians to convey their insights using our own" p.12
"if historians cannot study women of different backgrounds who have less power, we may be reduced to writing autobiography." p.12
"does our concern with interviewing women from other backgrounds sometimes take on a condescending tone?" p.13
"we need to continually analyse the interview as an interactive process, examine the context of the interview, especially inherent power imbalances, and always evaluate our own ethical obligations as feminists to the women we interview." p.13
Theoretical Dilemmas
"Since the mid-1980's, oral historians have increasingly examined language "as the invisible force that shapes oral texts and gives meaning to historical events"." p.13 (G. Etter-Lewis (1991) Reclaiming in Gluck & Patai (Eds) Women's Words, p.44
"Reading our interviews on many levels will encourage us to look for more than one discursive theme and for multiple relations of power based on age, class, race and culture as well as gender." p.14
"Privilege is not negated simply by inclusion of other voices, or by denial of our ultimate authorship and control." p.14
"Exploring and revaluing women's experience has been a cornerstone of feminist oral history, but the current emphasis on differences between women - in part encouraged by post-structuralist writing - has posed the dilemma of whether we can write across the divides of race, class and gender about other women's experiences, past or present." p.15
"is experience itself a construction of the narratives available to us in our culture?" p.15
"While it is important to analyse how someone constructs an explanation for their life, ultimately there are patterns, structures, systemic reasons for those constructions which must be identified to understand historical causality." p.15
Conclusion
"an emphasis on language and narrative form has enhanced our understanding of oral history" p.22
There are still "dangers of emphasising form over context, or stressing deconstruction of individual narratives over analysis of social patterns, of disclaiming our duty as historians to analyse and interpret women's stories." p.22
"Locating experience... should remain one of our [feminist oral historians] utopian goals." p.23
"Negating an understanding of experience as a 'lived reality' for women carries with it the danger of marginalising and trivialising women's historical voices and their experiences (however varied) of oppression" p.23
Comments
Post a Comment