The Kru/Krao Coast Heritage Initiative: Oral History, Local Memory, and Archival Silences in Sinoe County, Liberia
Megan Crutcher, Texas A&M University
Prince Kondeh, Kru Coast Heritage Initiative
This paper discusses an oral history project undertaken as a preliminary phase for historical archaeological research in Sinoe County, Liberia. Our project works with community members and elders to investigate Kru history, tempering eurocentric archival sources with local knowledge in an area that has been wracked by conflict and largescale disruption and mobility throughout the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
ABSTRACT: Of the sailors and canoemen in West African history, none have been so famous as the Kru of Liberia and Cote d'Ivoire. They shaped and reshaped the maritime trade landscape from the moment of contact with Europeans in the 16th century. However previous historical studies have mostly relied on European documentary evidence of Kru history across the world ocean, rather than on oral histories and ethnographic interviews. This is especially true in Sinoe County, Liberia, despite coastal Sinoe County being the origin point of the Kru identity. This paper discusses an oral history project undertaken as a preliminary phase for historical archaeological research in Sinoe County, investigating some of the strategies used to temper archival sources with local knowledge in an area that has been wracked by conflict and largescale disruption and mobility throughout the late 20th and early 21st centuries. This paper discusses ethnographic methods, oral history methods, objectivity, and our experiences in the field, especially given the subjective nature of face-to-face interviewing and the deep investment we have within the community in which we have worked. As such, this presentation is both a methodological and theoretical intervention and a report from an understudied topical field and area of the world within oral historical and historical research. Ultimately, we seek to illustrate how our oral history project has challenged archival silences in ways that blur the disciplinary boundaries of history, ethnography, narrative, and archaeology.A Museum of Stories
Donna Harris, Over-the-Rhine Museum
The Over-the-Rhine Museum is creating a new museum that seeks to tell the rich, diverse stories of people who left their homes to create new lives in this densely populated neighborhood of Cincinnati, Ohio. Our focus is to tell the stories of people whose stories are less well known: people of color, low-income residents, and women. Oral histories are part of the museum’s collection, increase community engagement, inform the interpretive plan, and will one day be a vital part of the exhibitions.
ABSTRACT: The Over-the-Rhine Museum uses oral histories in four separate, but interdependent ways to tell the neighborhood’s history from 1860 through today. Community Engagement: As a new organization, the Over-the-Rhine Museum needs to build trust among long-term residents of the neighborhood. Encouraging people to share their stories has been integral to connecting with residents. Collection: Museums often begin with a collection of historic artifacts. The Over-the-Rhine Museum began instead by collecting stories. Stories of people that many were unfamiliar with, that were not always represented in mainstream history. In 2017, museum volunteers began collecting oral histories from people in Over-the-Rhine. We have over 40 recordings and videos archived with the Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History at the University of Kentucky. The archive is linked to our website and ensures that the collection is accessible to the public. Interpretation: The Over-the-Rhine Museum is restoring an 1870s tenement to create an immersive experience for visitors by interpreting the apartments from 1865 through the early 2000s. Each interpreted space will tell the larger stories of a specific time through the individual stories of a specific family. Historians researched each family through primary and secondary sources to document their lives. Oral histories added family stories and apartment descriptions to develop richer, more nuanced representations. Exhibition: Oral histories give visitors a fuller picture of the lives of residents. In the current window exhibition family stories inform how objects were used by residents. In the future, photos collected from families that lived in the neighborhood could include a button that allows the viewer to hear the story behind the picture from a person who was there. Docents could use quotes from the transcripts during tours, and multimedia exhibitions could combine audio, video, still pictures, and artifacts. The actual voices of past residents add depth to exhibitions.Oral History in Re-claiming the Memory of "Forgotten" Bangladesh Genocide
Ummul Muhseneen, University of South Florida
An individual presentation focusing on the oral histories of a particular mass killing site of the Bangladesh Genocide. The collected oral testimonies of the survivors and victim family members narrate the atrocities of this particular killing site during the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War. This presentation elevates how oral history played role in the claim of a genocide and the justice process of local collaborators.
ABSTRACT: Bangladesh won its independence from Pakistan in 1971. The struggle was short, but bloody. All across the country Pakistani soldiers and local collaborators murdered thousands of civilians and quickly buried the evidence of their crimes in mass graves. The memory of these killings has remained a significant part of Bangladeshi identity, even though Pakistan and its allies to this day refuse to acknowledge what happened in 1971. This presentation focuses on one of the killing sites—Jalladkhana, a name that means “butcher’s den” in Urdu—and the role of collected oral testimony clarifying the past and healing long-standing wounds. Even though locals had knowledge on the existence of this mass killing site, the political instability in the country made it challenging for the survivors and the victim family members to talk about their loss. After the excavation of this killing site in the late 1990s, the survivors and victim family members came forward with their narratives in the claim of a genocide. Once the oral testimonies—largely collected by the Liberation War Museum, Dhaka, Bangladesh—were complied, it opened the discussion on the extent of brutality committed during the Bangladesh Genocide. This presentation offers how oral history acted as a media of re-claiming the memory of a genocide by the survivors and victim family members, providing a sense of closure for them. Oral history acted as a tool to drive the national justice process and to ensure removing the local perpetrators from national politics— thus bridging the past, present, and future.
