2024 Oral History Association Annual Meeting

Commons systems seem to hold ecologically regenerative power, and oral history has emerged as a central method for commons scholarship. Drawing on a trio of cases from Appalachian eastern Kentucky, and putting these in conversation with cases from India, Canada, Scotland, and South Africa, panelists will discuss their use of oral histories, emphasizing how oral narratives allow definitions of commons community to arise from those who built them themselves, and reflecting on the regenerative possibilities of commons-minded oral history scholarship.
Narratives of Appalachian Old-Growth Forests and Indian Sacred Groves: Protecting Biodiverse “Hope Spots”
Sinu Rose, University of Kentucky
Emma Kiser, University of Kentucky

Old-growth forests of the Appalachians and Sacred Groves of India have survived as repositories of biodiversity and as sanctuaries of collective memory and cultural identity. By centering oral narratives and community voices, this comparative co-presentation explores how the survival and protection of these “hope spots” has roots in commoning practices and oftentimes reveals common values, while also regenerating the forest commons for present and future generations.
Oral History and Regenerative Commons: A Transatlantic Case Study of Scottish Tenant Farmers and the Mi’kmaq First Nations in Eastern Maritime Canada
Rachel Herrington, University of Kentucky

Before they were enclosed or marginalized from their ancestral lands, 18th and 19th century Scottish tenant farmers and the First Nations Mi’kmaq of Eastern Maritime Canada used their native languages as unique commons systems necessary for their survival. This transatlantic case study uses historic oral interviews and Indigenous language connections to environment as tools for reclaiming commons and applying traditional ecological knowledge of land and resource stewardship towards future global climate justice.
Defining the “Public Good”: Commons and State Conservation in Appalachia and South Africa
Paolo D’Amato, University of Kentucky

State conservation efforts globally have had a heavy impact in both displacing and silencing the commons, replacing it with state narratives of industrialization and progress. Oral histories in both Appalachia and South Africa are vital to ‘rediscovering’ the commons and the communities built upon them in the wake of state power.
Divided Community: Strip Mining, Commons Environmentalism, and the Energy Crisis in Floyd County, Kentucky, 1972-1977
Jacob Johnson, University of Kentucky
Oral histories reveal how local residents of eastern Kentucky used commons environmentalism to fight against strip mining in the 1970s. By coalescing as the Floyd County Save Our Land (FCSOL) group, communities sought to defend their property, gardens, and waterways from the devastation of strip mining, and also challenged state agencies to properly enforce regulations already on the books.

ABSTRACT: Oral history methods have proved important to commons studies scholarship in a variety of fields. Appalachian examples include folklorist Mary Hufford’s extensive Library of Congress Collection, “Tending the Commons: Folklife and Landscape in Southern West Virginia,” which features hundreds of oral history sound recording excerpts, and historian Kathryn Newfont’s Blue Ridge Commons: Environmental Activism and Forest History in Western North Carolina, which grew from oral history interviews collected through the Southern Oral History Program. This panel builds on that scholarship by exploring the importance of oral history methodologies in commons scholarship, and specifically by putting Appalachian cases from eastern Kentucky in conversation with cases from India, Canada, Scotland, and South Africa. Commoning systems have Indigenous roots, and define community to include more-than-human as well as human elements. They have existed in many cultures across time and space, and still do despite many threats. These threats include enclosure, climate change, biodiversity loss, and “natural resource” extraction. How might utilizing oral history methods to study commons systems offer regenerative possibilities, and lessons toward creating brighter futures? A constellation of scholars at the University of Kentucky places commoning at the center of historical study, and offers preliminary results here. This panel uses oral history to highlight commons and commoning from multiple perspectives and suggest the regenerative power of such systems. Presentations will discuss ways oral history can document and illuminate commons livelihoods practices; commons as biodiverse cultural, lingual, and spiritual reservoirs; and commons environmental activism against strip mining and deforestation. Drawing on oral histories, cross cultural comparisons examine commons practices and enclosures in the Appalachian region, India, Mi’kmaw territory, the Outer Hebrides, and South Africa. Considering the regenerative potential of commons systems through oral history provides hope for climate mitigation and for revitalizing local and global ecologies including our beyond human relatives.