Oral History in the Wake of the Ethnic Cleansing of Artsakh
Ani Schug, Rerooted
Rerooted Oral History project, received the OHA's Emerging Crises grant in 2023 to collect testimonies from ethnic Armenians who were displaced from their homeland by Azerbaijan's 2020 war against Artsakh. Just weeks before beginning the project, another armed attacked started and the entire population of Artsakh was forcibly displaced, with no Armenians living in that land for the first time in 5 centuries. What can the role of oral history be at such a critical moment to preserve the past and build the future of a nation that no longer physically exists?
ABSTRACT: Rerooted received the OHA's Emerging Crises grant in 2023 to collect testimonies from ethnic Armenians who were displaced from their homeland by Azerbaijan's 2020 war against Artsakh. Just weeks before beginning the project, another armed attacked started and the entire population of Artsakh was forcibly displaced. After centuries of Artsakh being home to a rich Armenian community with their own dialect, customs, and heritage sites, no Armenians remain there today. Armenians in the Diaspora who are descendants of Armenian Genocide survivors understand intimately that losing a homeland, especially to a hostile government, also inevitably entails the loss of unique dialects, cultural heritage sights, customs, and traditions of our ancestral home. The establishment of oral history archives and documentation projects was not possible in the first decades after survival. Without a strong bank of preservation tools and testimonies, communities faced assimilation, cultural loss, a lack of documentation of human rights violations, and ultimately, widespread denial of the Genocide. Now with Artsakh, we are unfortunately watching history repeat itself, but we have the resources, tools, and opportunity to ensure proper documentation and prevent cultural loss by acting immediately. This presentation will explore the following questions with practical perspectives from on the ground in Armenia, and the distance of intergenerational reflections: What can the role of oral history be at such a critical moment to preserve the past and build the future of a nation that no longer physically exists? How soon is too soon to collect testimony, but how late is too late? How do we create a manifestation of collective memory for a community that is completely in exile?
Documenting the US Afghan War - An Oral History Archive
Halima Kazem, University of California - Santa Cruz
How documenting the US Afghan war through oral histories has the potential of changing the way grand narratives about Afghanistan have been told and understood.
ABSTRACT: America’s longest war ended in August 2021 but the lessons learned from 20 years of America’s fighting and foreign policy in Afghanistan will take decades to process, reflect on, and learn from. The Hoover Institution’s Library and Archives at Stanford University is documenting the important stories of Afghans, Americans and others who took part in and experienced the war and rebuilding efforts in Afghanistan. Afghanistan’s history, especially versions popular in North America and Europe, has most often been written about by non Afghans and with very few Afghan sources. The Hoover Afghanistan project is working to change this by focusing on capturing the stories and experiences of Afghans who fled the country after the US withdrawal, the Taliban regime takeover, and the collapse of the Afghan government.This presentation will explore the potential that oral history methodologies have in the study of Afghanistan’s historical pasts, especially in a country that has been in conflict for more than 40 years. Oral and life histories create opportunities for suppressed or underrepresented voices of people from Afghanistan to contribute to historical memory and be treated as historical subjects. These new and varied historical narratives and counter narratives have the potential to contextualize or change grand narratives that have dominated how Afghanistan’s history has been recorded and shared. This project also grapples with the ethics of interviewing individuals who may have committed war crimes and human rights violations.
Palestinian Oral history of the Nakba and its Relevance to Gaza Today
Carol Gray, University of Alaska Fairbanks
This presentation explores earlier interviews of Palestinian immigrants speaking about the mass exodos of their parents, grandparents and friends during the 1948 "Nakba" (catastrophe) where the State of Israel was created while 750,000 Palestinians became refugees. These interviews help shed light on some issues unfolding in Gaza now as Gazans discuss their fear that the bombardments in Gaza may lead to a second Nakba.
ABSTRACT: As the death toll continues to rise in Gaza (presently almost 30,000), it is important to remember how the past influences the present and future. Drawing on Palestinian oral history narratives, this article address critical questions relevant now in Gaza. Why do many Palestinians want to remain in Gaza even when their cities are in rubble? Why has Egypt refused to open its border to offer sanctuary to Gazans who wish to flee? Why does the U.S. demand that the future Gaza be controlled by Palestinians with no reduction in size? The answer lies in the past. In 1948, Israel was born following a 1947 U.N. resolution partitioning Palestine by designating land for the creation of Israel despite Arab peoples already living in the region. This resulted in the forcible (and voluntary) displacement of 750,000 Palestinians, the “Nakba”, meaning catastrophe.Using past interviews conducted by this writer with Palestinian immigrants, this article explores how stories of the Nakba passed on to interviewees by their parents, grandparents, and friends are critical to understanding the current situation in Gaza. Media footage from Gaza discusses concerns that Gaza is a second Nakba and that Palestinians leaving their homes and cities in Gaza will be permanently dispossessed. Palestinian oral histories also provide missing links in the historical record. Khalidi (1997) discusses how the formation of Palestinian identity suffered from the loss of historical archives and the personal libraries of Palestinians due to forced and voluntary migration. Saraee Makdisi (2010) discusses the process of erasure of Palestinian identity. Palestinian oral histories add to the fabric of Palestinian identity and provide greater understanding of attitudes toward current events, recognizing that the potential for future peace in Palestine and Israel relies on coming to terms with the past.
Tracing the Forgotten Memory: Unearthing the Inherited Oral History of the 1965-1966 Mass Violence in Indonesia through History Learning
Nur Fatah Abidin, Sebelas Maret University
A new approach for unpacking forgotten or controversial oral history through education (history learning).
ABSTRACT: From 1965 to 1966, a mass massacre and killing of those who identified as members, partisans, and likely affiliated with the Indonesian Communist Party happened in Indonesia. The survivors of the tragedy were then politically and socially marginalized in the later political period and now some of them seek justice for the past while others remain silent. To unpack the history of mass massacre and violence in Indonesia, 1965-1966, Extensive historical research and advocative projects have been carried out. The project included a massive testimonial record collection from survivors. However, many of the survivors are still afraid to speak up leading to collective forgetting. It is crucial to have an updated method of recording to record the memories of the survivors. Hearman (2009) and Roosa (2013) have recommended the use of oral history as an alternative method for recollecting historical fragments. In this approach, the memories of survivors are partly or wholly passed down to t
