2024 Oral History Association Annual Meeting

“A Life of Listening” is a panel that presents three senior scholars’ reflections on their lives as oral historians. Rather than the standard fifteen minutes, each scholar will speak for a full twenty-five minutes so that they can develop their ideas and create a meaningful oral history life narrative about listening.

ABSTRACT: Inspired by the American Council of Learned Society's annual keynote lectures, "A Life of Learning" in which scholars present intellectual autobiographies, “A Life of Listening” is a panel that presents three senior scholars’ reflections on their lives as oral historians. Rather than the standard fifteen minutes, each scholar will speak for a full twenty-five minutes so that they can develop their ideas and create a meaningful oral history life narrative about listening. The 2024 panel features distinguished oral historians, Claytee White, LuAnn Jones, Paul Ortiz, and Martha Norkunas (chair) who have served the field as Directors of Oral History Research Centers, Oral Historians for the National Park Service, authors, OHA Council presidents and members, activists, teachers, directors of oral history projects, and most importantly, as listeners.

Narratives of Hurricane Ian: Moving Forward in the Aftermath - Frances Davey and Joanna Salapska-Gelleri, Florida Gulf Coast University

ABSTRACT: On September 28, 2022, Hurricane Ian hit southwest Florida as a Category 4 storm, with sustained winds of up to 155 MPH and a storm surge of up to15 feet. Ian moved northeast before pushing inland. Heavy rainfall exacerbated the destruction, causing major riverways to flood. Ian devastated property, collapsed critical infrastructure, and caused over 100 deaths in Florida. Lee, Collier, Charlotte, and Hendry Counties were the hardest hit. The slow-moving hurricane lasted six grueling hours. It is now nearly eighteen months past this event, but Floridians at present are still recovering from the most devastating natural disaster in this area in over 80 years. We are now collecting stories of those who experienced the storm itself and grappled (and in many cases, are still grappling) with the fallout. As we archive this collection, we look toward the future and ask: How do we prepare under resourced communities who took the brunt of the storm’s impact as evidenced by the immediate response as well as the long-term economic, social, and personal deficits and losses? In conducting oral history interviews with residents across the area, it has become evident that socioeconomic factors heavily influenced the extent to which individuals experienced this catastrophic natural disaster. A Lee country resident J.G. considered that “really there is a relationship between kind of where you live and how safe you are.... And kind of what people who lived in...much more vulnerable people who live in, in low lying areas, much more vulnerable. And there tends to be this relationship between, you know, rent prices and, and safety.” Recalling past hurricanes, Fabian E. said, “I know with Irma there was a lot of government aid, but that was like after it happened, but I think with Ian there was really nothing.”

Past and Present Environmental Change in the Chesapeake: Tangier Island's Cultural Landscape and Oral Anticipations of the Future - Lincoln Lewis, University of Virginia

The presentation analyzes how oral histories can document extreme environmental change and the impact on cultural landscapes. Tangier Island in the Chesapeake is the context for oral histories by watermen and the community that recount past and present environmental change, and residents’ anticipations for the future.

ABSTRACT: The presentation analyzes how oral histories can document extreme environmental change and the impact on cultural landscapes. Tangier is the last inhabited island in Virginia’s Chesapeake Bay and has been known as the soft-shelled crab capital of the world. First settled in the 18th century with primarily English emigrants from Cornwall, the unique dialect remains distinctly constant. However, what has changed is the island losing almost 70 percent of its land area between 1850 and 2015 because of environmental factors such as wave action and erosion, together with sea level rise and soil subsidence. In tandem since 1930, Tangier’s population has decreased by more than 70 percent. These local changes have been paired with wider transitions in the Chesapeake significantly impacting the watermen who rely on crabs and other bounty. Tangier’s licensed watermen once numbered nearly 200, however now only eight active watermen remain working with crabs and a few with other catch. Oral histories captured from both active and retired watermen describe their cultural working landscape of Mailboat Harbor and the wider Chesapeake. For the first time beyond a handful of historic photographs, oral histories have captured and animated the transition of crab house architecture and technology from floats to molting tanks. Such histories are important because of the island’s dwindling population and the pressures on the community increasingly suggesting potential resettlement to the mainland. Because of this, the oral histories importantly capture residents’ anticipations of the island’s future. Insights from Tangier’s oral histories inform methods of how specific traits of cultural landscapes can be better understood. The study also demonstrates how observed environmental change, social justice, and present-day scientific findings supporting climate change are approached in dialogues with interviewees. Research for this project was supported by the University of Virginia’s Center for Cultural Landscapes and the Environmental Institute.

NOAA Voices Oral History Archives | Past, Present & Future
Molly Graham, NOAA's Voices Oral History Archives
Micro-land Sales, CAFO’s and the Future
Alexander Timon Primm, Oral History of the Ozarks

NOAA Voices | Oral History Archive is a repository for firsthand accounts of environmental changes, serving as a crucial source of qualitative data for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), aiming to preserve and share experiences from communities nationwide and beyond, with plans to expand its accessibility and integration into NOAA's data landscape.

ABSTRACT: NOAA Voices | Oral History Archive is the oral history repository for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. NOAA Voices brings together, preserves, and shares first-hand accounts of the changing environment from communities across the US and beyond. NOAA Voices represents a unique and essential source of qualitative data related to the human experience associated with the NOAA mission. This presentation will describe the background, purpose, scope, and scale of this program. We will also explore the project's current accessioning focus and consider the next steps in integrating qualitative data into NOAA’s data landscape, expanding the archive's utility and relevance for researchers, educators, and the public.

Potholes & Pitfalls: Presenting Oral History over Time - Dena Scher, Professor Emerita at Marygrove College

The past was a struggle, the present brought opportunities, the future is bleak.

ABSTRACT: Past: In the past, oral histories were tapes often with an inaccurate record or a summary of the recording. Interviewers often focused on well-known (famous) individuals. The potholes of this time were big bulky recorders, the time or expense needed to provide an accurate paper transcription, and the focus on the famous or wealthy.Present: Technology opened opportunities for more oral historians with better recorders. The recorders had become tiny handheld and could be downloaded directly into a computer. Then more technological advances came with cell phone technology. Correspondingly, less expensive transcription services became available, and some newer AI (artificial intelligence) software increased the reach of oral histories. Cultural values had changed so that the voices of many people were collected adding historical material about the lives of women, immigrants, individuals who are black, brown, or red and the list goes on. The potholes of this time were the need for agreed upon standards for interview collection and a standard of training for interviewers. The placement and storage of interviews was uneven, mostly in educational settings but in some other venues as well.Future: Now we have increased interviews in different venues and there are interviewing guidelines and ethical directives from the Oral History Association (OHA) as well as libraries, and academic settings. The pitfall of the future is that we are losing interviews and whole collections of oral histories because of the lack of technological support and inattention to need for frequent updating and synching with new technologies. When a technical system is not supported, when a college or library closes, when staffing changes and loses the ability to update the interface, oral histories can be lost and disappear forever. There is not a paper copy, or a voice as there may have been in the past. The future is bleak if we do not pay attention to storage, updating, and technical support of oral history collections.
The Importance of Context to Oral History: Past, Present, and Future Perspectives - Mary Larson, Oklahoma State University Library

The importance placed on providing context for oral histories has waxed and waned over the last few decades, in large part as a result of the formats we have used to make interviews accessible. This talk considers the changing role of context and how the lack or presence of it can change how we have made meaning from oral histories in the past and how we might be able to do so in the future.

ABSTRACT: The potential meanings that researchers and the general public have been able to draw from oral histories have evolved over the years along with the context provided by the media on which they are recorded and through which they are presented. A transcript can be a pale representation of an interview, while making audio recordings available provides more depth and emotion. Having video recordings adds body language and visible interaction to the mix, and, more recently, online videos with contextualizing information such as photographs, maps, and documents bring us yet a fuller understanding of the moment that was recorded. But what happens to these oral histories in the age of big data and AI? There is certainly valuable research that can be accomplished in areas like digital humanities, particularly, with oral histories contributing to spoken-word corpora creation and being available for language analysis. But, how does this change of format -- the conversion from contextualized interview to possibly decontextualized or differently contextualized data -- impact how we make meaning from oral histories, and what does that suggest for us as practitioners?
Remembering Our Firsts: Reflecting and Reconnecting with Past Projects - Lauren Kata, NYU Abu Dhabi

Do you remember your first oral history project? This talk, "Remembering our Firsts: Reflecting and Reconnecting with Pasts Projects," considers my first project over 20 years ago and the questions and considerations that arise when we reflexively look back on earlier moments of oral history practice.

ABSTRACT: Do you remember your first oral history project? “Remembering our Firsts: Reflecting and Reconnecting with Past Projects” discusses my project of revisiting the first project I developed and managed over 20 years ago. I consider the process of “going back in time” to re-listen and re-read my own interviews of earlier eras. Questions I ask include, how might I engage the project today? Would I ask the same questions? What do I wish I would have done that I didn’t? Now an open archival collection, how have others engaged these interviews since I co-created them? These questions and this project are not meant for navel gazing; rather, I believe reconnecting with our earlier work can be a cathartic, reflexive, and even pedagogical exercise around one’s oral history practice, and can be an affirmation of growth within the discipline.
H.O.P.E.: History Orally Passed Eclectically - Tanya Finchum, Oklahoma State University

C.R. Snyder's theory of hope will be discussed and applied to various oral history collections demonstrating hope as a bridge between the past, present, and future.

ABSTRACT: Thirty years ago, “The Psychology of Hope: You can get there from here” was published. Snyder anchored hope to a concrete goal and suggested that hope reflects a mental set in which we have the perceived agency as well as pathways (or bridges) to get to our destination. We get inspiration from various sources (such as OHA) to help us move toward and accomplish our goals. Reflecting on almost twenty years of OHA membership and thinking about Snyder’s theory, I conclude that I arrived at my first OHA conference, Little Rock 2006, with hope. I had demonstrated agency and had transversed pathways by choosing to attend a ROHO Summer Institute, by reading numerous articles, and by having conversations with folks like Terry Birdwhistle and Nancy McKay. I came armed with years of social worker and librarian interviewing experience and with enthusiasm for a career change. I left with homework to do, which led to reviewing the proceedings of OHA conferences held in the 1960s where I found connections to librarians such as Elizabeth Dixon and Louis Shores. OHA indeed has an eclectic mix of members and mentors, many of whom have contributed to an eclectic collection of oral histories, hence history orally passed eclectically. Further, our narrators come from various walks of life which further contributes to the patchwork tapestry of documenting humanity. For this presentation I will share about a few of the practitioners that inspired my path as well as highlight some examples of collections I have contributed to that I think demonstrate Snyder’s theory of hope and how hope can connect the past, present, and future.

Producers Eric Marcus, Nahanni Rous, and Inge De Taeye provide windows into the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies and the Making Gay History audio archive through public facing podcasts, sharing decades old oral histories in a contemporary format that bring these stories into the present with the potential to positively affect the future.

ABSTRACT: How do you make existing oral history archives that are typically used only by scholars accessible to the public in an easy-to-use and engaging format? Producers/journalists Eric Marcus, Nahanni Rous, and Inge De Taeye have been doing exactly that in their work with the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies and the Making Gay History archive. Together they produce two successful podcasts that have been downloaded millions of times by thousands of listeners around the world. The Making Gay History podcast is principally drawn from more than 100 recorded interviews that Eric Marcus conducted for the two editions of his original Making Gay History book beginning in the late 1980s. Those Who Were There: Voices from the Holocaust is drawn from the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies at Yale University, which consists of more than 4,000 videotaped interviews that were conducted beginning in the 1970s. During the panel discussion, Eric, Nahanni, and Inge will share the process by which they shaped archival recorded oral histories into digestible and engaging podcasts, including the challenges and limitations of the podcast format. As part of the discussion they will share several audio clips from each of the two podcasts. (Just FYI, the Making Gay History podcast received an award from the Oral History Association in 2017 for "Oral History in a Non-Print Format.")

Oral History and Philanthropy Study
Huitan Xu, Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy

The paper seeks to examine how researchers use oral history to inform studies exploring philanthropy topics and to enrich our understanding of individuals, organizations, or events pertinent to philanthropy.

ABSTRACT: This paper delves into the use of oral history as a methodology to explore philanthropy. Initially, it reviews literature from Scopus, a multidisciplinary abstract and citation database, examining how oral history has been utilized in philanthropy studies. The paper then shifts to a case study, presenting the research design for an investigation into the organizational history of the Amity Foundation, a notable faith-based organization established in 1985 in China. This section highlights the methodological approach and potential contributions of the study. The final section summarizes existing oral history resources and projects in the philanthropy field in the United States and China, revealing a significant scarcity of such sources despite the rapid growth of the philanthropic sector in both countries. This gap underscores the need for more oral history to enrich the available resources and deepen understanding of the evolution of philanthropic culture and practices in both countries.

Visual Oral Histories from East Indonesia: Reverberative Trauma and Healing
Julie Gaynes, University of California, Los Angeles

In sharing visual vignettes from the researcher’s forthcoming graphic novel featuring verbatim oral history transcriptions from East Indonesia, Gaynes proposes that artistic-symbolic expressions of oral histories (including surrealist fine art, sculpture/installation, and symbolic photography) complicate popular assumptions that material archives stifle the vitality of oral testimony. This presentation invites discussion about how artistic and particularly surrealist expressions of oral histories can enhance empathic connections between oral historians, narrators, and readerships in ways that help narrators’ voices “travel” across time and space.

ABSTRACT: Historians for centuries have documented cyclical violence over land disputes on the island of Adonara, East Indonesia. Until today, retaliative violence persists beyond control of the national justice system. So long as war etiquette conforms with local ontological understandings of divine justice, Adonara islanders consider violence in service of their “nara” or kinship circles justified. In Adonara, oral history provides the only means for reversing the stigma surrounding the region German anthropologists once reduced as “The Killing Island.” Education theorists Nicholas Ng-A-Fook and Kristina R. Llewellyn’s visions for community-directed oral history inspired field methodologies for “re-storying” narratives of trauma and kinship in the Solor Archipelago. Over thirteen months of oral history research in Adonara (2023-3034) led to four dozen life history recordings from victims, witnesses, and perpetrators of domestic violence, violence against purported communists, and inter-village warfare. Propelled by Miriam Hirsch’s insights on “post-generational memory”, the graphic novel version of my dissertation textures the reverberations of violence and presents research in an accessible format for my field collaborators who prioritize orality and visual media over the written word. Hirsch insists that memory is a “living connection” that can be reflected in literature, photography, and testimony, and can affect readerships who wish to understand the reality of trauma by proximity. In doing so, art expressions of oral history connect past, present, and future. In sharing visual vignettes accompanying verbatim oral history transcriptions, I propose that artistic-symbolic expressions of oral histories enhance empathic connections between oral historians and narrators, and additionally evoke humanistic connections between narrators and readerships across time and space. I conclude that creative combinations of orality and literacy on difficult pasts can expose complex historical factors that enable violence; meanwhile, artistic research expressions in oral history can also extend the reach of indigenous knowledge central to identity conservation.

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

This panel will explore the horrors, or challenges, of doing oral history and considerations for collection management, preservation, and access. From working with members of the deaf community to inheriting legacy collections, panelists will address concerns across the oral history lifecycle and ideas for building more accessible bridges going forward.

Not As An Afterthought: Building Accessible Bridges to include Deaf and Signing Communities
Corinna Hill, Department of Liberal Studies, Rochester Institute of Technology, National Technical Institute for the Deaf

I will address some of the accessibility challenges facing our field and discuss how we can improve documentation of Deaf and singing stories and discuss ways to improve our interview practices, including sharing my "horror" story from when I conducted oral history interviews through Zoom and relied on the transcript from my notes. Overall, my aim is to talk about how we, as a field, can build accessible bridges going forward to include accessibility from the beginning, not as an afterthought.

The Perils of Inheritance
Kopana Terry, University of Kentucky

I will discuss the perils of inheriting a large archive that isn't necessarily together, especially when the digital archive differs slightly from the analogue archive, and the oil and water of balancing administrative and sustainability concerns.

The Complexities of Achieving Narrator-Centeredness in Oral Histories
Kierstin Stager Muroski, Rochester Institute of Technology, National Technical Institute for the Deaf

I will share some considerations I have about navigating the collection of oral histories from the Deaf community as a hearing interpreter. As a new researcher in this field, I will talk through my initial thoughts about what I see as the importance of achieving narrator-centered interviews and ensuring that myriad intersectionalities are met with shared agreements and shared accountability among the team.

Four Cadets (Students) at the United States Military Academy highlight the work they've done with Oral Histories in their research and professional development. This is an undergraduate level panel consisting of four history majors who are doing exciting work in the field of Oral History.Coming To Terms With The Rwandan Genocide Through Oral History - Kari Malatak, United States Military Academy
This presentation relies upon oral histories in the aftermath of mass atrocities, specifically the genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda, to help understand the tragedy that occurred there. It examines the role that storytelling plays in the healing and reconciliation processes, as well as its role in countering denial.

Establishing A Narrative: The Ethical Responsibility of the Oral Historian - Isabella Colitsas, United States Military Academy
In a rapidly expanding technological landscape where "everyone becomes their own historian," the process of recording and presenting the truth becomes more complex and contested. The oral historian has a responsibility to be open to multiple interpretations of an event, attempting to triangulate various perspectives into a coherent narrative. What is truth when oral accounts come from individuals' lived experiences?

Generational Differences Among Jamaican Immigrants In Connecticut - Marqus Hubbard, United States Military Academy
In the post-World War II era, a majority of Jamaican immigrants have immigrated to Connecticut. Generational differences have developed within the Jamaican diaspora based on when new arrivals came to America, why they immigrated, and what their experience was when they arrived.

Countering Terrorism and Gang Violence In Latin America: Developing Solutions To An Evolving Challenge - Taylor Root, United States Military Academy
Oral history interviews with military professionals from the United States and Latin American countries grapple with the complexities of terrorism and gang violence in the region and the search for a solution.
ABSTRACT: Oral History is an important component of the history curriculum at the United States Military Academy, where America’s future leaders are educated. Excerpts from interviews recorded by the West Point Center for Oral History are incorporated into electronic textbooks, classroom presentations and discussions, interactive library exhibits, and summer educational enrichment opportunities (Staff Rides). Oral histories educate and inspire Cadets, enabling the current generation of aspiring Army leaders to learn valuable insights from their predecessors’ experiences while humanizing the history being learned. The West Point Center for Oral History is an integral part of the History Department’s Digital History Center, which also includes Material Culture Studies, the United States Military Academy Band, the Black History Project at West Point, and the West Point Museum. Oral history is an exciting field, and important to research being conducted at the United States Military Academy. Four Cadets (undergraduates) have developed individual projects based on personal interest and academic pursuits. One conducted a Staff Ride to Rwanda to study and understand the Rwanda Genocide. During the process of the Staff Ride, she interviewed Cadet and faculty participants, as well as survivors and perpetrators of the Genocide. Another Cadet analyzed different perspectives of the Class of 77 Honor incident and how it is remembered by those who lived through it. She highlights how different memories shape the narrative. A third Cadet delves into an immigrant community in his home state of Connecticut to understand differences among various generations of Jamaican-Americans. Finally, the fourth Cadet analyzes different perspectives concerning terrorism and gang violence in Latin America through interviews with United States and International military professionals. These four Cadets illustrate the variety of academic research and intellectual curiosity among the students in the History Department at the United States Military Academy.

Panelists will be discussing their studies and efforts to document and preserve the histories of Arab American and MENA (Middle Eastern or North African) American communities through their respective academic fields and practices.

SESSION ABSTRACT:
This panel will explore the growing field of Arab American and MENA oral history collection which remains historically underrepresented in US oral history scholarship. In light of the current rise of anti-Arab hate and racism, as well as misinformation about the community at large, this panel will demonstrate how various professionals and academics have been documenting the MENA and Arab American narrative with the hopes of teaching oral historians and professionals how to approach the community and work with them in an ethical, empathetic, just, and respectful manner. The featured panelists have spent decades working with the Arab and MENA community to preserve and document their lived experiences through ethnographic, archival, and genealogical work. Maria Curtis has been conducting ethnographic projects in the Middle East for decades now and recently began engaging with Arab immigrant communities in Houston; Reem Awad-Rashmawi, has been conducting both her own interviews for her efforts to connect families as well as genealogical work both in the U.S. and the Arab world, through means of record researching, oral history documentation and DNA research; Laura Lethers, is an archivist at the Moise A. Khayrallah Center for Lebanese Diaspora Studies where she corroborates her work with artifacts and objects with relevant oral histories in their collections. Rose Esber has been an oral historian and academic for decades and has conducted and collected many oral histories over her career to inform her wider projects on the Arab and MENA communities.

Documentation of Oral Histories in Arab American Communities
Shatha Najim, Arab American National Museum
Shatha Najim, a Community Historian at the Arab American National Museum (AANM) in Dearborn, MI, will provide an overview of the museum, its initiatives, its extensive oral history collection, and archival materials. Najim's work and research highlights the importance of oral history collection through documentation of Arab American communities in the United States, and how it has become integral to the development of AANM's core exhibits, serving as a valuable resource for community members, scholars, researchers, and professionals seeking to explore Arab American narratives from authentic voices.

Arab American Oral Histories: Collecting, Preserving, and Storytelling from Lebanon, and Palestine to North Africa
Rosemarie M. Esber
Dr. Esber will be presenting her research together with contemporary photographs taken by Arab American veterans of WWII who served in North Africa. This research will illuminate the devastation and suffering wrought on the native peoples of North Africa as well as their interaction with US troops, for which there is scant first-hand documentation.

Arab American Public and Oral History: Foundational Collections and New Directions 
Maria Curtis, University of Houston-Clear Lake
This presentation reflects on the preponderance of oral histories as a foundational part of disciplinary scholarship and examines the ways that oral history may live side-by-side with large archival collections.

Uses of Oral History Interviews in Arab American Genealogy Research
Reem Awad-Rashmawi, National Society for Arab and Arab American Genealogy
Oral history interviews play a key role in Arab American genealogy research and documentation. Pairing document and historical research with oral history interviews gives not only the foundation for building a family tree but also adds the life and stories of families to pass on to younger generations and ties the community to its roots.

Oral Historians Have No Standards - At Least Around Transcription Style Guides
Michael Sesling, Audio Transcription Center
Hanassa Wicks, Audio Transcription Center

As a transcription service, we have a unique view of the plethora of style guides that exist among oral historians. The diverse landscape of style guides for transcribing oral histories presents a notable dichotomy. Our role allows us to offer a unique view, requiring us to delve into the minutiae of each style guide that we receive. In turn, this intricate process allows us a comprehensive understanding of the different approaches within the field.

ABSTRACT: As a transcription service, we have a unique view of the plethora of style guides that exist among oral historians. The diverse landscape of style guides for transcribing oral histories presents a notable dichotomy. Our role allows us to offer a unique view, requiring us to delve into the minutiae of each style guide that we receive. In turn, this intricate process allows us a comprehensive understanding of the different approaches within the field.In this session, we’d like to observe some of the various style guides that are used as a standard in the oral history world, and open a dialogue with the audience about all of the numerous and varied guidelines that exist.We’ll explore the potential of creating a more customizable style guideline for oral historians that utilize the centralized commonalities of the various guidelines used, and work with the audience to find a methodological approach to creating a more standardized concept that will help alleviate the challenges and difficulties encountered by transcriptionists, while remembering the nuances of each.Oral History Indexing (OHI)
Douglas Lambert, University at Buffalo, SUNY

In the Fall of 2023 I published an article in the Oral History Review called "Oral History Indexing (OHI)." In this presentation I will recap and comment on OHI's first 25-year innovation period, and discuss prospective new directions for this work in light of new technology opportunities.

ABSTRACT: Oral history indexing (OHI) is a set of practices that emerged for content management of large audio/video (A/V) collections. Driven by curators who wished to publish complete collections of interviews, and made possible by computer-based media, innovators in OHI introduced a variety of new modes of electronically linked A/V access, as early as the mid-1990’s. OHI typically involves creating thematic passages within recordings, with segments defined by media timecodes--providing access within and across interviews. Akin to an indexed book, OHI systems allow cross-referencing to specific points within media documents, describe content through natural language, and promote browsing and exploring modes rather than literal text searching. In this presentation I will summarize OHI between the 1990’s and 2023, when it existed as a set of markup processes facilitated by software tools but overseen by human intelligence. I will highlight a range of methodological approaches and system attributes from major institutions who pursued OHI and illustrate how the concepts and skills involved are applicable for other long-form A/V content. I will also discuss how emerging technologies such as automatic speech recognition and large language models are already changing oral history transcription practices, and OHI.The Warrior Women Project: Applying Ethics and Core Values in the Auditing and Editing Work of First Nations Oral History Transcripts
Eric Gaither, Columbia University

This session focuses on the praxis of oral history transcript auditors and editors who make an active commitment to honor nation and community-centered approaches and core values in the process of generating textual remembrances as artifacts.

ABSTRACT: The Warrior Women Project (WWP) is a collaborative of matriarchs, historians, community organizers, and multimedia storytellers working to bring to light the critical impact of Indigenous women throughout recent history. Over the past two and a half decades, WWP has generated thousands of hours of audiovisual content requiring some level of non-AI acknowledgement in the process of transcription. Multiple speakers interweaving remembrances across time, space, and language communities represent an embodied form of cultural practice that leads with the expectation an auditor and/or editor both hear and listen to narrators as expert, inter-legible community voice(s).This presentation focuses on auditory work that values deep, poly-vocal listening as a commitment to de-center self and center collective voice articulation within the aesthetic fabric of the oral history transcript. Rather than correct the voice in print, the approach employed here seeks to center and honor the voice; to approach the message and its speaker(s) with respect and humility; to engage in the work of translation from audio and visual to textual with integrity; and to acknowledge the wisdom of the matriarchs.Enhancing Oral History Collections in South Africa through Artificial Intelligence, Case Studies of Gauteng Unsung Sport Heroes and South African National Parks Board Conservation Records
Isabel Schellnack-Kelly, Department of Information Science, University of South Africa 
Nampombe Saurombe, Department of Information Science, University of South Africa

The article focuses on trying to encourage two oral history collections to consider utilizing artificial intelligence tools to make their collections more accessible to archivists, researchers and interested members of the public. The challenges specifically relate to those encountered in South Africa.

ABSTRACT: Oral history collections serve as invaluable repositories of cultural heritage, offering insights into the lived experiences, perspectives, and narratives of individuals and communities. In South Africa, these collections play a crucial role in preserving and promoting the country's diverse heritage, yet they face significant challenges in management and accessibility, including labour-intensive transcription and indexing processes and the need for culturally sensitive approaches to archiving. In recent years, advances in artificial intelligence (AI) have provided new opportunities for enhancing the management and accessibility of oral history collections. By leveraging AI technologies such as speech recognition, natural language processing, and machine learning, archivists and researchers can automate tasks such as transcription, translation, and metadata tagging, thereby streamlining the archival process and expanding access to oral history materials. By undertaking a qualitative research within a postmodernist approach, this article explores the potential of AI in enhancing oral history collections in South Africa, with a focus on case studies of Gauteng unsung sport heroes and South African National Parks Board nature conservation records. Through these case studies, the researcher examines how AI technologies can address the challenges of managing and accessing oral history collections, while also considering the ethical implications and best practices for integrating AI into archival workflows. 

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.

Keeping it Local will share tips and tricks from three GLAM (Gallery, Library, Archive, Museum) professionals who have worked with community members and their stories for much of their respective careers. This session hopes to empower attendees to think about “Keeping it Local” in their communities and seek new ways to help disseminate information to their patrons and community members.
Keeping it Local: Building Community Memory Through Oral History
Dave Schroeder, Kenton County Public Library

The Kenton County Public Library’s oral history project, stories from local veterans, library personnel, community members from Northern Kentucky. This presentation will discuss specific programs and skillsets that will help train individuals to conduct interviews, specifically relating to the Kentucky Arts Council’s Community Scholars Program.
Keeping It Local: Collecting and Sharing Oral Histories with the Community

Larry Richmond, Genealogy & Local History Department at the Cincinnati & Hamilton County Public Library
This presentation will be discussing the Ohio River Flood of 1937 and the Cincinnati & Hamilton County Public Library’s online ArcGIS Storymap exhibit that features oral histories and images that make the events come alive. Website: https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/33ce2215515e40e0986cd044f76fdaac
Keeping it Local: Using AI to make Underrepresented Community Voices Accessible
Arabeth Balasko, Cincinnati Museum Center

Using AI Technology to generate transcriptions of BIPOC voices in the Cincinnati Museum’s oral history collection. These oral histories have been sitting unused and inaccessible for decades and have not been shared publicly until now. These underrepresented voices are currently being uploaded, along with their transcriptions, onto our recently updated database portal, ArchivEra. This presentation will highlight the challenges and triumphs of incorporating AI into Cincinnati Museum Center’s oral history collection workflow.ABSTRACT: Keeping it Local will explore the diverse ways that GLAM (Gallery, Library, Archive, Museum) professionals can create community relationships in a technologically driven world. Each panelist will share their tips and tricks, their triumphs and challenges when it comes to working with 21st Century technology and fostering relationships with local community partners. By focusing on preservation, action steps, access, and staying human in a technically evolving world, the presenters in this session hope to inspire participants to Keep it Local in their own respective communities and organizations.

This panel explores oral histories which highlight twenty-first century examples on struggles for procedural justice by examining case studies of Indigenous Bolivian gender and sexual diversity, the Tribe of the Jean Charles Choctaw Nation’s forced relocation in Louisiana, and the Native American Churches’ political mobilization against drug policy reform that decriminalizes mescaline, the psychedelic compound in peyote. Each case centers on the perspectives of Indigenous people and their political representation within multiple social landscapes.

Indigenous Sexual Diversities and the Politics of Language and Mobilization in Contemporary La Paz and El Alto, Bolivia
Natalie Kimball, College of Staten Island - CUNY

Drawing on approximately 30 oral interviews I conducted in 2022, this paper explores the ways in which queer individuals and activists in the Bolivian cities of La Paz and El Alto think and talk about, and mobilize for, rights and recognition. In particular, the paper explores the differences between indigenous and Euro-descendant perspectives toward sexual and gender diversity and LGBTQ activism in contemporary Bolivia.

End of the Road: Forced Exodus from Isle de Jean Charles
Heather Stone, University of Louisiana at Lafayette

Interviews collected since 2015 share how the ancestors and current Jean Charles Choctaw Nation members have watched their inherited homeland wash away and become less habitable year to year, month to month, and even day to day. With it went a part of their cultural identity, and its loss, in effect, creates an abolishing of their community as environmental changes have forced the Tribe into surrounding areas.
ABSTRACT: Centering approximately 60 oral history interviews collected from three U.S-based scholars conducting independent projects between the years 2016-2024, this session explores the ways in which Indigenous communities think, talk about, and mobilize for, rights and recognition across multiple political landscapes. Voices include queer individuals and activists who criticize the role of western knowledge systems and NGOs on determining priorities in the struggle for queer rights in the Bolivian cities of La Paz and El Alto. Oral histories from this collection demonstrate how organizations and groups formed by individuals of indigenous Bolivian descent typically identify with pre-Colombian notions of sexual diversity and eschew the use of the language they deem western. The second case study in this panel explores engagement with politically active members of the Native American Church from the American southwest and Rocky Mountain region who advocate for Peyote protection/conservation in the wake of 2020s psychedelic drug policy reform. The contentious political background surrounding the 1978 American Indian Religious Freedom Act (AIRFA) is considered by tribal members to be a major historical backdrop of contemporary drug policy reform in the U.S. Finally, the oral histories of tribal members from the Jean Charles Choctaw Nation facing the both the effects of climate change and the legacy of forced relocation in the American south are amplified within educational spaces. This project brings attention to Indigenous residents in Louisiana deeply impacted by rising sea levels. Inspired by this year’s conference theme, this session engages with the ways in which the long history of indigenous mobilization coincides with present-day, global struggles for political representation. Despite the historical marginalization of Indigenous populations and knowledge systems in Indigenous communities globally, the session illustrates how indigenous activists are employing organizational forms to mobilize for rights, recognition, and protection of their bodies, language, land, and sacred ceremonies.

This panel features the collaborations of Indigenous communities, educators, and students who are a part of the growing initiatives for Indigenous truth telling of boarding schools, which seek to understand and share oral histories that introduce the public and Native American youth and communities to complicated Native American boarding school experiences.
Oklahoma Catholic Native Schools Project
Lisa Lynn Brooks, Montclair State University

Success of projects focused on Native American boarding school experiences depend on their intrinsic sensitivity and collaborative nature to develop trusting relationships with participants. However, the political landscape that provides the backdrop to this type of oral history collection can have an indelible mark on the collection process and the ultimate successfulness of the project. In 2021, the Catholic Archdiocese of Oklahoma City funded the Oklahoma Catholic Native Schools project to determine the effect of Catholic Indian boarding schools on the assimilation of the Native people in Oklahoma. Missteps in the early stages involving listening sessions at parishes near historic boarding school sites and negative press coverage diverted early attempts at participant recruitment for oral histories that focused on individual and family experiences with Catholic Boarding schools. This talk navigates the impact of cultural narratives in Oklahoma, including implicit bias, Catholic triumphalism, and wokeness, that stoked fear in religious and political entities to prevent an expansive investigation. Participant recruitment, public perception, and press coverage were ultimately impacted by fear and collective reframing of harm done to Native people in Oklahoma.Oral Histories of the Sac and Fox Boarding School
Ashley Moelling, University of Oklahoma

As a student research assistant and Indigenous archaeology scholar, Ashley Moelling (a Muscogee/Creek citizen) delves into archival sources to find and listen to voices of Sac and Fox boarding schoolers in Oklahoma. She is an intern at the Sam Noble Museum of Natural History. She joined a team of researchers, led by Dr. Farina King, to learn about the Sac and Fox boarding school. She is spearheading the efforts to collaborate and follow the guidance of the Sac and Fox Nation in creating more curriculum and educational resources about boarding schools and how they affected communities.Voices of Oklahoma: Indigenous Archeology and History of Boarding Schools
Cheyenne Widdecke, University of Oklahoma

Cheyenne Widdecke is a graduate student studying anthropology with an emphasis on archaeology at the University of Oklahoma. She works for a program that has focused on archaeologies and histories of Native American boarding schools for high school students known as Voices of Oklahoma. She is also an assistant director of operations for the Oklahoma Public Archaeology Network (OKPAN), an OU organization that foster conversations about heritage across community and disciplinary borders, including the Voices of Oklahoma program. She highlight the work of Voices of Oklahoma and her work with ongoing relationship-building with the Sac and Fox Nation.Exploring the Legacy of Colonialism on Oklahoma Education: Using Historical Foundations of Education in Oklahoma to Understand Contemporary Education in Oklahoma and its Impacts on Native Youth
Savannah Slayton, University of Oklahoma

Savannah Slayton, a Cherokee citizen, is an undergraduate school who began to work with oral histories of boarding school survivors to understand the legacy of colonial settlement in Oklahoma and its impact on Native youth. She focuses on how Native youth learn through the lens of colonialism and the education system’s historical injustices. Under her mentored research with Dr. Farina King, she focuses on the perspectives of Native youth, educators, and community leaders to understand the ongoing impacts of colonialism, specifically boarding schools, on the education system in Oklahoma.Intergenerational Strength in Kiowa Family Oral Histories
Codie Horse-Topetchy, University of Oklahoma

Codie Horse-Topetchy is the descendant of boarding school survivors and shares the oral histories of her Kiowa family. She underscores the significance of intergenerational strength, which her family oral histories carry despite intergenerational trauma. She is a student researcher who assists Dr. Farina King with Indigenous oral histories in Oklahoma, especially relating to ecologies and traditional knowledge.
ABSTRACT: This panel features the collaborations of Indigenous communities, educators, and students who are a part of the growing initiatives for Indigenous truth telling of boarding schools, which seek to understand and share oral histories that introduce the public and Native American youth and communities to complicated Native American boarding school experiences. Oklahoma has one of the highest concentrations of Native American boarding schools, and this panel highlights various working relationships to listen and learn about the diversity of Indigenous experiences and contexts of the many peoples and Native Nations. Some of the panelists have been in service-learning and research-focused courses that feature Indigenous community-centered work to understand tribally specific and intertribal boarding schools and impacts on Native American education and people with storymaps and oral histories. Other panelists have launched a summer program for Native American high school students to work with Native Nations in Oklahoma to learn the histories and archaeologies of Native American boarding schools. Some panelists have launched oral history projects for denominational and non-denominational boarding school experiences. All the panelists will address the constellations of Native American boarding school experiences, which vary but are interconnected in Oklahoma where Indigenous peoples from over 39 Native Nations have been affected by over 70 different boarding schools.

The next generation of Oral Historians has much to contribute. This panel will examine four unique and compelling histories collected for the purpose of preserving the histories of underrepresented groups whose stories add richness and complexity to the history of the US.
"The Other Country": Challenging the Cultural Concepts of Motorcycle Clubs
Cody Reinhard, Northern Kentucky University

This oral history project examines the change over time in motorcycle club culture by collecting oral histories from members in several clubs in multiple locations and US states. These oral histories will capture not only the first person stories of club members, but will illustrate how cultural forces, both internal and external, affected the zeitgiest of the motorcycle club from the 1950s to the present.

The Griots of New Richmond: Black History as Oral History
Jamie Thompson, Northern Kentucky University

The focus of my research is on the preservation of the stories of the African American community in New Richmond, Ohio, where I have collected stories from both residents and local historians. These oral histories have been showcased in my podcast, "Our History Matters," and illustrate why focusing on smaller, rural communities is important to history.

The Sisters of Charity and the Second Wave: Remaining Faithful after Vatican II
Keegan Brown, Mount St. Joseph University

This oral history project focuses on collecting oral histories from the Sisters of Charity of Cincinnati, and will build on the relatively limited oral history archive of women religious that exists in the US today. By placing the Sisters of Charity into the larger historical context of US history, I will examine their significant but overlooked role in supporting local communities and providing education to contsitutencies that would have otherwise been overlooked, as well as explore the reasons they chose to remain part of a religious order when second wave feminism began to provide women with opportunities that had earlier been denied them.

From the Convent to Consulting: An Oral History with Virginia Riehl
Christopher Riehl, Northern Kentucky University

Virginia Riehl, who grew up in Bellvue, Kentucky, found herself heavily influenced by the Catholic community that thrived there at the time, and she eventually took holy orders and became a Sister of Notre Dame-a safe and legitimate way to 'run away from home' and pursue her education beyond grade twelve. She eventually left the order due to the changes that occured as a result of Vatican II and the concurrent feminist movement, founding her own consulting firm and living out a compelling story that illustrates how both her Catholic upbringing and the opportunity to pursue her education are part of the larger national story that was unfolding at the time with regard to the roles of women.ABSTRACT: Gen Z, often touted as eschewing books, spending countless hours scrolling on their phones, and as unambitious, have been unnecessarily mischaracterized. What is true about Gen Z, however, is that they love to read, care deeply about the planet, and, in the case of this panel, are passionately committed to the field of history. The projects included in this panel range from collecting conversations with descendants of enslaved persons to motorcycle gang members to women who have wrestled with their place in US society and found creative solutions to carve out their niche. Using past practitioners such as Taylor Branch and Urvashi Butali as inspiration, they have made the best use of today’s technology to preserve these histories for presentation in myriad formats. They aspire to bridge the past, present, and future of oral history and understand the value of collaboration, sharing techniques and solutions. And, they are finding new and exciting platforms through which to share their work to inform and inspire future generations.

This panel features projects led by young adults of color, high school students, college students and recent college graduates, narrating pandemic and protest, through the lens of the working-class and immigrant communities from which they derive.
The Long Struggle to Confront Anti-Black Violence in NYC: Undergraduates Archive and Analyze Stories from Peers and Elders Still Seeking Racial Justice
Samantha Ruiz-Correa, Guttman Community College

During World War II, Civil Rights leader A. Philip Randolph organized the Double V Campaign, demanding victory against fascism abroad and against racism at home. While Randolph’s movement led to significant gains for African Americans, today, yet another generation has been forced to continue the struggle for Black liberation. With more than 300 oral histories gathered over five years and in six languages, Voices from the Heart of Gotham: The Undergraduate Scholars Oral History Collection at Guttman Community College houses student-designed and produced interviews that elevate rich, complex and buried counter-narratives about the past and present focusing largely on black, immigrant and activist experiences in NYC. By collecting and writing about these oral histories, undergraduates at Guttman have become producers of knowledge amid a historic movement for Black Lives. NYC’s history of systemic violence against Black communities, and powerful movements of resistance, position our city as a site for critical racial history. For us, students at CUNY, our home has become a focal point in the struggle for racial justice. Given the experiences in our social networks and those of our peers, we realized the testimonies collected at Guttman were vital to challenging the white supremacist and nativist systems that founded the United States and have proven central to the shaping of diverse experiences in our city. This paper will focus on testimonies narrated between 2020 and 2024, centered on themes of protest in the aftermath of highly publicized incidents of police brutality. We will unveil and honor the pain and perseverance of largely working-class communities of color as they grappled with their place in society, often taking to the streets and their devices demanding a more just home.Digital Dreams and Hurricanes: 9th Graders Study Themselves Coming of Age in time of Protest, Pandemic and an Ever-Evolving Online Social Universe
Ixchel De Dios, School in the Square High School

We are the School in the Square (S2) Youth Research Collective; A group of rising 9th graders, who have worked with educators in Washington Heights, NYC since Fall of our 6th grade year to design a school-wide oral history project of our peers as a strategy to enrich the cultural and socio-emotional well-being of our school. Beginning with New York State’s required SEL intervention, we developed a Longitudinal Oral History Project, led by middle school students at S2, where we gathered peer-to-peer narratives about socio-emotional dynamics, from middle schoolers growing up in working-class and immigrant households in times of pandemic and racial uprisings. As we, the youth researchers, have taken more of a decision-making role in the project starting in 7th grade, we have evolved the study to look into our lives as mostly Latinx youth in Washington Heights. We are now studying a constantly evolving cyber universe that supercharges our anxiety, the impact of rising xenophobia on our immigrant families, and how the particularly brutal devastation wrought by COVID-19 on our community has shaped our childhood. As we begin life in high school, this paper will narrate rich and complex stories of joy, fear, courage, and care. We will detail how this project centers the expertise of students of color from immigrant families, coming out of COVID-19, in the throes of early adolescence, who found great relief in discovering that our fears and anxieties were widespread. Through this work we note the sense of empowerment we felt as our research project influenced school policy. Further, we will discuss the transformative impact of the oral history experience, illuminating new ideas for both interviewee and interviewer. The act of oral history in the context of this project nurtured a school consciousness with young people coming of age in times of pandemics, uprisings, and remote learning in a wildly unequal and segregated city. This presentation unveils the challenges and opportunities that this project presented in a difficult moment of national -- and local -- history.Parenting the Elders: First Generation Children Guiding Parents/Guardians Through Cultural and Legal Obstacles in Uncharted Waters
David Surrey, Saint Peters University

First generation children, usually the oldest and most frequently female, have traditionally had to play the role of interpreting for their elders the rules for adapting to the United States. This ranges from pleading with their grandmothers not to bargain for vegetables in the supermarket to filling at the right forms for admission to college. It is more frequently involving dealing with the related topics of immigration, housing exploitation and employment challenges. And finally there is the burden of raising their younger siblings in an environment that their own parents are not familiar with.Students from Saint Peter’s University, as first-generation immigrants, have been creatingOral history project to study their family dynamics in this age of increasingly harder challenges to their communities. They are trying to balance their roles as cultural interpreters and protectors with being college students in the face of a dwindling number resources. Their stories are a first-hand reality checks that we all must be made aware.
ABSTRACT: This panel features projects led by young adults of color, high school students, college students and recent college graduates, narrating pandemic and protest, through the lens of the working-class and immigrant communities from which they derive. Guttman Community College students and alumni, members of the inaugural School in the Square High School 9th grade class and activist undergraduates at Saint Peter’s University Undocumented Student Center will respectively present the ties that link each oral history project to the movements and struggles that their community and/or generation is pursuing and enduring. They will further explore the impact of oral history as pedagogy – how producing knowledge, by documenting marginalized lives, has transformed them and their informants. Further, these presentations will explore the social and societal impact of the pandemic and demands for immigrant/racial justice on city dwellers. This panel illuminates what it means to study oneself despite historic obstacles.

This panel looks at how oral histories help bridge the past with the future, through new research practices and methods, or simply by acknowledging an underrepresented group, tying together layers of connection through time, space, and various groups of people. We look at those practices through oral histories and the archives they are housed in, more specifically within the Oklahoma Oral Research Program (OOHRP).

ABSTRACT: Many of the archives and collections we work in offer unique opportunities to bridge the past with the future, through new research practices and methods, or simply by acknowledging an underrepresented group. This panel looks at those practices through oral histories and the archives they are housed in, more specifically within the Oklahoma Oral Research Program (OOHRP). Savannah Waters’ contribution centers Indigenous perspectives on the intersections between gender and sexuality. Thirty-nine Native nations reside within the boundaries of the state of Oklahoma creating a unique bridge between the history and identity of two-spirit Indigenous individuals. Oklahoma is also known for staunch Christian conservative values that has repeatedly attempted to circumscribe the liberties of queer communities. Native peoples established two societies in Tulsa and Oklahoma City, Oklahoma that became a support network for two-spirit people who work against homophobic attitudes. By prioritizing two-spirit oral histories, researchers can better elucidate Indigenous perseverance in the Bible Belt. Katanna Davis centers her discussion around specific collections within OOHRP. She provides information about these collections, along with their contributions to history about Oklahoma and Oklahoma State, and how working through the metadata has produced discussions on ways to improve the collections and expand their presence throughout the university and other Oklahoma communities. Her position with OOHRP provides her with a unique view of the collections and their potential for growth. Arlowe Clementine’s centers queer oral history methodologies in their work looking at the lived experiences of 2SLGBTQIA+ Oklahomans. Arlowe is interested in exploring who stays and who migrates out of Oklahoma due to state, religious, and familial violence against their queer bodies. Clementine also explores methods of combating historical erasure of progressive queer Oklahoma resistance tactics. These works tie together to showcase layers of connection between the past and future practices and collections within Oklahoma oral histories and archives.

Transcriptions, Translations, and Representation: Oral Histories in a Second Language among Return Refugees 
Mary Patrice Erdmans, Case Western Reserve University

This presentation draws from my current oral history project on return refugees, specifically, members of the Solidarity movement in Poland who became political refugees after martial law in 1981 and returned to Poland after the collapse of communism in 1989. In this paper, I address three methodological tensions regarding transcription, translation, and representation. Most of the oral histories (35 of 40) were collected in English. All of the English-speaking respondents had been refugees in English-speaking countries (median of 20 years abroad) and have some proficiency in English. Language issues, however, complicated oral history practices. Initially I transcribed verbatim but as I began coding and working with the transcripts, I questioned the utility of verbatim transcripts, and stopped transcribing verbatim. A second issue related to translation. For interviews conducted in Polish, sometimes the translator did not translate fully. I know enough Polish that I was able to translate some of the interview while transcribing. Should I then include the translator’s translation in the transcription along with my own? I did. But then, whose words should I use in published texts? A final issue is how to represent their oral histories, in their own words, when I publish books and articles. For some, especially those less proficient in English, my inclination is to tell their story for them, and yet I specifically use this methodology because it allows people to speak for themselves. I want the orality. This tension is centered in debates around the politics of representation. Do I correct minor grammar errors? I find myself making corrections for these reasons: it more fairly represents class and educational location; the speaker wants their mistakes corrected; and it helps readers read the text. I am interested in what the audience and panel think about these issues.
Bringing Oral History to the Spanish Classroom: The Development of the "Voces de la Diáspora" Project at Princeton University
Alberto Bruzos Moro, Princeton University

This presentation outlines the development of "Voces de la Diáspora," an oral history project dedicated to collecting, sharing, and preserving the narratives of the Spanish-speaking community in Princeton, New Jersey. This initiative is a collaborative effort between "Voices of Princeton," an oral history endeavor jointly sponsored by the Princeton Public Library and the Historical Society of Princeton, and Princeton University's Department of Spanish and Portuguese, Department of History, and Program for Community-Engaged Scholarship (ProCES).Seeking to address a significant gap in the historical record, the project aims to capture the diverse experiences of Spanish speakers in Princeton (New Jersey), a community often overlooked despite comprising approximately 5-6% of the town's population since the 1990s. This oversight stems from various factors including linguistic barriers, immigrant status, racial and cultural disparities, and socioeconomic differences. Notably, Latinos are prominently represented in low-paid occupations such as childcare, landscaping, janitorial services, and food service within both the town and Princeton University. Furthermore, the project entails the creation of a curriculum comprising Spanish and History courses designed to equip students with the necessary skills for conducting oral history research. The presentation will delve into the complexities encountered in establishing a collaborative project between the Departments of Spanish and History, as well as navigating the intricate partnership model involving university and public stakeholders. Key questions to be addressed include strategies for bridging the divide between an Ivy League institution and a predominantly immigrant, working-class community; methods for conducting background research when traditional sources are limited; approaches for preparing students to conduct interviews in a second language; and adherence to ethical principles and guidelines inherent in oral history research within this unique context.Oral Histories for Linguistic Justice in Health Care: Pandemic Stories from Kansas Latine and Mayan Communities
Rachel Showstack, Wichita State University
Michelle Enke, Wichita Public Library

Building on an oral history project at the Wichita, Kansas Public Library, the community-based health equity initiative Alce su Voz at Wichita State University is conducting COVID story interviews with Kansas residents in Spanish and Mayan languages. Our aspiration is to depict the history of our communities during a pandemic so that our state can be more prepared to make sure that all Kansans receive equitable care, resources, and safety information during the next public health emergency.

In 2018, Librarian and Archivist Michelle Enke attempted to create an exhibit on the 1918 flu pandemic and how it affected the city of Wichita, Kansas, but she was unable to locate any sources besides the newspapers and some governmental reports. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, Enke knew that it was important to record the personal histories of individuals who were living through it, and she conducted and publicly archived 45 English-language oral history interviews with Wichita residents, offering them an opportunity to tell stories about their experiences related to COVID-19. While the interviewees were carefully selected to represent a broad demographic, Enke noted that there was a part of the story that was missing from the collection: the pandemic stories of individuals who experience difficulties communicating in English. During the pandemic, Latine and Mayan communities in Kansas experienced high infection rates and were initially very likely to report vaccine hesitancy, due to factors including inadequate information dissemination, distrust of medical practitioners motivated by historical abuses, and incongruence between community health practices and the dominant biomedical perspective. Furthermore, social distancing protocols led to challenges for the use of in-person interpreters, and noisy ventilators and masks hindered communication using remote interpreting services. Despite these obstacles, Latine and Mayan Kansans demonstrated considerable resilience; individuals and organizations collaborated to develop information campaigns on social media, advocated for vaccines for meatpacking workers, and disseminated resources.This year, Alce su Voz at Wichita State University is conducting COVID story interviews with Kansas residents in Spanish and Mayan languages. With the two sets of interviews, our aspiration is to depict the history of our communities during a pandemic so that our state can be more prepared to make sure that all Kansans receive equitable care, resources, and safety information during the next public health emergency.

The Schizophrenia Oral History Project is an ongoing project that began as a way to give voice to underrepresented individuals as they were previously believed to be incapable of coherent thought, much less the ability to provide an understandable life history. It has since expanded to include linguistic analysis of narrators’ transcripts in an effort to understand differences in speech patterns that can deepen our understanding of the losses and successes they experience in pursuit of their core values.
Narrators’ Impact on Changes in Knowledge about Schizophrenia
Tracy A. McDonough, Mount St. Joseph University
Lynda L. Crane, Mount St. Joseph University

The Schizophrenia Oral History Project is an ongoing endeavor that currently archives the life stories of more than 65 narrators that not only belie stereotypes but have acted as a catalyst for such change. In this presentation, we will highlight stories that show the ways that persons with schizophrenia are not only proving their detractors mistaken but are also having a significant impact on the improvement of psychiatric treatment itself, both in terms of the interpersonal treatment received and the kinds of therapies and medications offered.
Using Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count as a Tool to Objectively Code Oral Histories about Schizophrenia Diagnosis and Values
James H. Bodle, Mount St. Joseph University

We used Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) to code 20 narrators’ transcripts looking for passages where they discussed their diagnosis, and passages where they discussed important values in their life, such as relationships, goals, and career ambitions to tap into psychological processes which may not be fully conscious (Chung & Pennebaker, 2007). These processes can show us when people become defensive, assertive, or feel differences in power with others and could be useful tools in examining oral histories.Fondly remembering the past, but hopeful (though cautious) for the future
Kory L. Phelps, Mount St. Joseph University

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy is the theoretical framework for the linguistic analysis conducted, describing the ways in which our narrators bring up both their values and their diagnosis when telling their story. When narrators discussed their values, they were more likely to use positive emotion words, talk about their friends, and their past; however, when discussing their diagnosis, they are more likely to use negative emotion words, talk about their family, and the future.ABSTRACT: Schizophrenia is a severe psychopathology characterized by positive symptoms such as hallucinations and delusions and also by negative symptoms such as emotional withdrawal and impoverished thought. Unfortunately, many sufferers are stigmatized in the public eye, both by mental health professionals and the average layperson. Label someone as “schizophrenic” and people mistakenly fear them as potentially violent, which can cause them to isolate and/or avoid seeking treatment. Fortunately, that reaction seems to be fading, and it appears to be the case that the more contact we have with people with this disorder, the more accepting our attitudes become. The Schizophrenia Oral History Project is an ongoing project that began as a way to give voice to these underrepresented individuals as they were previously believed to be incapable of coherent thought, much less the ability to provide an understandable life history. Since then, it has expanded to include linguistic analysis of narrators’ transcripts in an effort to understand differences in speech patterns depending on content discussed. And current work is connecting the results of this linguistic analysis to narrators’ core values to deepen our understanding of the losses and successes they experience in pursuit of their core values. During the panel, we will share the progression of this oral history project intended to allow audiences to connect with the humanity of those with a condition that was previously thought to render people incapable of purpose, love, and hope.

War conditions stimulate researchers to be especially diligent in developing an understanding of the needs and challenges of various groups within the society affected by the military conflict. The participants of this panel will talk about the fieldwork they conducted over the past two years in Ukraine with children and adolescents, teachers, and cultural heritage workers examining how belonging to a particular age or a professional group shapes a person’s experience of war.
An Adventure, a Trip, an Everyday Life: How Children Describe the Russo-Ukrainian War (2014 - 2024)
Viktoriia Nesterenko, Karazin Kharkiv National University

This presentation is a nuanced study of the way children tell stories about their war experiences and the effect these experiences have on children’s personalities. It also addresses what can be done to support children who live through a military conflict.

The Impact of War on the New Ukrainian School: the Hazards and Opportunities of Oral History Methodology in Documenting Youth Aspirations during Wartime
Carl Mirra, Adelphi University

This presentation explores how researchers can tackle the ethical challenges of “crisis” oral history. It also examines the strengths and limitations of the use of a constructivist grounded theory coding system for understanding broader analytical categories related to civic values, democratization/agency and resilience among Ukrainian high school students and teachers during the acute phase of Russo-Ukrainian war.

Cultural Heritage under Fire: Expert and Activist Narratives of Preservation in the Wartime
Iryna Sklokina, Center for Urban History

In my presentation I am going to focus on the oral narratives from different regions of Ukraine focused on two aspects of the wartime experience: physical threat and damage caused by the Russian aggression and rethinking the heritage canon in the light of decommunization, recolonization, and derussification.ABSTRACT: Wars bring drastic changes into people’s lives. Some of them affect everyone, however describing an experience of war as something homogenous would be a mistake that often contributes to stereotypes associated with the images of war survivors. Oral history research is one of the best methodologies that helps scholars tackle these stereotypes allowing people from different backgrounds and with different life paths to tell their stories the way they see them. Creating opportunities for these stories to be recorded, archived, and communicated is not an easy task, however. War conditions impose severe limitations and require careful considerations of possible repercussions both interviewers and interviewees may face due to participating in an oral history project. They also stimulate researchers to be especially diligent in developing an understanding of the needs and challenges of various groups within the society affected by war. The participants of this panel will talk about the fieldwork they conducted over the past two years in Ukraine with children and adolescents, teachers, and cultural heritage workers examining how belonging to a particular age or a professional group shapes a person’s experience of the military conflict.

This panel explores oral histories surrounding the Russo-Ukrainian War and Afro-Brazilian Candomblé communities. The research focuses on cultural resistance through religion, social media, and the roles of women in war.
Cultural Resistance in the Russo-Ukrainian War - Thomas Wood, West Chester University

Thomas Wood interviewed Ukrainian university students who took part in the project. His research investigates how this group of Ukrainians participated in and views acts of cultural resistance through social media and identity.

War is No Place For Women - Skylar Painter, West Chester University

Skylar Painter interviewed Ukrainian women about their experiences during wartime, whether that be past instances of Soviet aggression or during the current Russo-Ukrainian War.

The Centrality of Oral Tradition to the Study of Candomblé - Isabela Carvalho, West Chester University

Isabela Carvalho researched the Afro-Brazilian Candomblé community. Candomblé is a religious resistance movement that used oral traditions to pass down their culture during the intense years of persecution in the twentieth century.

Education Through War: At Home and Abroad - Wibke Meurer, West Chester University

This panel analyzes how education has changed for Ukrainian university students since Russia's full-scale invasion. The research focuses on the challenges and possibilities which students are exposed to in their student life in Ukraine and abroad in Germany.ABSTRACT: This panel consists of oral history research from three West Chester University of Pennsylvania students. Students’ projects focus on testimony from narrators with Ukrainians experiencing war firsthand and members of the Candomblé community in Brazil. While the narrators’ cultures are distinct from one another, the research shares a common thread of studying the use of cultural resistance in the past, present, and future to subvert oppression. Isabela Carvalho researched the Afro-Brazilian Candomblé community. Candomblé is a religious resistance movement that used oral traditions to pass down their culture during the intense years of persecution in the twentieth century. Carvalho’s interviews highlight how this community persevered to the present day. Skylar Painter interviewed Ukrainian women about their experiences during wartime, whether that be past instances of Soviet-aggression or during the current Russo-Ukrainian War. Painter’s role was as a part of a broader project in partnership with Saarland University, Petro Mohyla Black Sea National University, the Ukrainian Catholic University, and West Chester University of Pennsylvania. Painter’s research explores how women’s identity has impacted their modes of resistance. Thomas Wood worked on a different subproject within the international partnership of universities. Wood interviewed Ukrainian university students who took part in the project. His research investigates how this group of Ukrainians participated in and views acts of cultural resistance through social media and identity.These three projects seek to raise the voices of historically marginalized communities through the use of oral history. By amplifying the stories of communities experiencing various forms of violence and oppression, we empower them to further resist their oppressors. Our projects explore a history of oppression and resistance, how this history manifests in the present, and finally how we can move forward to a world where Ukraine is a sovereign nation and the Candomblé can practice their religion in peace.

Informed by an understanding of gaps in its collections, the University of Kentucky (UK) Nunn Center for Oral History has turned its collection efforts inward, to the people and the stories at the university. In this session, three UK archivists and oral historians describe the Center’s recent efforts to interview and engage with groups on campus who have been historically underrepresented in the collections.
Legal Histories: Documenting Law School Alumni from the Post-Civil Rights Era
Anu Kasarabada, University of Kentucky

Anu Kasarabada will discuss the UK College of Law’s efforts to strengthen ties with Black alumni from the post-Civil Rights era through oral history interviews. These alumni have historically been left out of the law school’s narratives about itself; now the school hopes to build new relationships with its former students by recording their stories.

Building Bridges: A Chronicle of Diversity and Dialogue - The Commonwealth Institute for Black Studies Oral History Project
Matthew Strandmark, University of Kentucky

Matthew Strandmark will discuss his oral history project, focused on the scholarship and lives of faculty members of the Commonwealth Institute for Black Studies, a multi-disciplinary research institute that serves as a “think tank for Black Studies” at the University of Kentucky. Interviews with CIBS faculty cover the importance of community when building a diverse faculty, as well as the importance of cross cultural conversations and multi-disciplinary inquiry.

Expanding Horizons: The Evolving Work of the Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History
Kopana Terry, University of Kentucky

Kopana Terry will discuss the evolving nature of The Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History at the University of Kentucky. Traditionally focused on political figures, the Center has expanded globally in the past 15 years, incorporating diverse life histories. Initially centered on Kentucky, the collection now includes stories worldwide, spanning topics like Black experiences, LGBTQ+ narratives, and climate and health challenges. Recently, the focus shifted to capturing diverse stories within the University of Kentucky community.ABSTRACT: For most of its 50 years, the Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History at the University of Kentucky (UK) focused on collecting interviews with political and public figures in the Commonwealth. Over the past fifteen years, however, the Nunn Center has broadened its collections beyond politics and state borders by adding thousands of interviews from across the country and around the world, from Pennsylvania to Egypt. This effort has resulted in the inclusion of the life histories of Black people, women, LGBTQ+ groups, people with disabilities, people grappling with climate change and COVID-19, and other subject areas previously outside the collection scope. Now, the Center’s collection efforts have turned inward, to the people and the stories at the University of Kentucky. In this session, three archivists and oral historians from the University of Kentucky describe the Nunn Center’s recent efforts to interview and engage with campus communities that have been historically underrepresented in the collections. Kopana Terry will provide an overview of the Center’s current projects and documentation strategies, particularly as they relate to oral histories of academics and other educators. Anu Kasarabada will discuss the UK College of Law’s efforts to strengthen ties with Black alumni from the post-Civil Rights era through oral history interviews. And Matt Strandmark will talk about his oral history project focused on the scholarship and lives of the UK Commonwealth Institute for Black Studies, a multi-disciplinary research institute that serves as a “think tank for Black Studies.”

Graduate students and staff from the Eastern Michigan University Oral History Program dissect the progress of the program as well as the rationales and decisions behind the occasional and sudden veerings from the original strategic plan. An archivist who never expected to become an oral historian, an oral historian who never expected to be a teacher, and graduate students who have increasingly determined the overall direction of the program will discuss their progression from good talkers to good listeners.

ABSTRACT:  Since its inception in 2018, the Eastern Michigan University Oral History Program (OHP) has gone from a single, self-trained graduate student to a campus wide, community-partnered, student-driven initiative to capture the recollections of community members on and off campus. In 2021, the EMU OHP debuted the EMU Aerie, a mobile oral history recording booth designed to eliminate physical barriers to campus that often discourage potential narrators from in-person interviewing. Three years into the Aerie experiment, the Oral History Program has seen itself on the road and embedded in various cultural events, curriculums, and fundraising events, fostering and sustaining relationships with SE Michigan residents of all ages, genders and cultural backgrounds. However, the road to the OHP has not always been barrier-free. While program coordinator Matt Jones and University Archivist Alexis Braun Marks have worked in tandem to effectively empower students to come face to face with the history they are documenting, thorny issues of empathy vs. exploitation, trauma-based interviews, narrator end-of-life considerations, and discussions of who tells whose story are always at the forefront of daily operations amongst an increasingly diverse set of student interviewers. Jones and two graduate students will highlight the projects, predicaments, curriculums and conundrums of an oral history program struggling to bridge the stories of the past with the listeners of the future. 

These panelists will discuss their oral histories of nurse practitioners, students pursuing healthcare careers, and peer supporters for individuals with opioid use disorder. These projects promote an exploration of the shifting meanings of care, the tensions caregivers face when their care clashes with the priorities of the systems in which they learn and work, and the role of storytelling in caregiving communities
"You Have a Story that Could Help a lot of People": Building a Peer Support Movement during the Opioid Epidemic
Ethan Sharp, Kentucky State University

For this project, I recorded the oral histories of participants in the peer support movement to assist in the recovery of individuals with Substance Use Disorder (SUD) in Kentucky from 2019 through 2021. This paper explores why peer support services have become a crucial element in efforts to stem the opioid epidemic, and through close examination of one recording, the paper demonstrates that sharing one’s story is the primary means by which peer support specialists provide comfort, encouragement, and hope to people struggling with SUD.

Medicine of Care: Oral History of the Nurse Practitioners in the 1980-1990s
Morag Martin, SUNY Brockport

For this project, a team of nursing students and I interviewed 30 Nurse Practitioners who trained in the 1980s and 1990s, when the profession was adapting to the needs of communities and expanding its scope and responsibilities. In this presentation, I discuss how the interviewees perceived their changing roles and the choices they made in their professional and personal lives.

Navigating the Challenges of Healthcare Training During a Global Pandemic: The MCPHS University COVID-19 Pandemic Oral History Project
Carrie Schultz, Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences

The MCPHS University COVID-19 Pandemic Oral History Project is documenting students’ experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper looks at some of the challenges students training for careers in the healthcare industry have faced during the pandemic and examines students’ reflections on how the pandemic influenced their decision to pursue employment in the healthcare sector.ABSTRACT​: Nurse practitioners, students pursuing healthcare careers, and certified substance use disorder recovery peer supporters are three groups that may not appear to have much in common. Yet these groups all engage in communities of care in the modern United States, their stories shaped by the larger social, political, and economic contexts of their time. By preserving and telling these groups’ stories in the form of oral history interviews, we highlight the challenges in providing care through periods of innovation (the new profession of Nurse Practitioners), crisis (healthcare students during COVID-19), and recovery (opioid use disorder). All three papers in this session focus on listening to and preserving the stories told by caregivers. Registered nurses training to be Nurse Practitioners during the 1980s and 1990s chose to push their education into the realm of medicine, leaving behind their primary identity as support providers to redefine their position in the quickly changing U.S. healthcare system. More recently, the students at MCPHS University were faced with unique opportunities to train as healthcare providers during the pandemic, while also reimagining how their education might prepare them for a post-COVID medical landscape. Finally, as Kentucky has experienced one of the highest rates of death from Opioid Use Disorder, the state has enlisted certified peer supporters to provide personalized care that supplements more traditional forms of Substance Use Disorder (SUD) treatment. As people with SUD recover, many find that storytelling itself is a form of care that provides encouragement and hope. These oral history projects center the stories of caregivers struggling with the meaning of care within their student and professional communities and the tensions that sometimes arise when caring for people conflicts with the priorities of institutional medicine in the United States. Additionally, these presentations speak to the conference’s theme of past, present, and future. The panelists’ papers reflect on how past caregiving models inform the work of present-day caregivers and provide today’s healthcare practitioners and support providers with ideas for revolutionizing their models of care as they move into the future. ​​​

This session examines different ways of listening, and methodological approaches to oral history that account for the deeply contextual, personal and political natures of our projects, particularly about activism and liberatory practices. Each paper challenges us to think about how we can use oral history in creative ways to do justice to the communities with whom we work, and to imagine new ways of being in relationships with, and accountable to, each other.
“It was Amazing How Much the Disorganization was Organized”: The 2012 Quebec Student Strike and Listening for Diversity
Anna Sheftel, Concordia University

This paper explores an oral history project about the 10th anniversary of the 2012 Quebec student strike, the largest and longest student strike in Quebec history. It discusses how oral history has been a key way of capturing the diversity and decentralized nature of the movement, something lacking in a lot of scholarship and public discourse around it.

Challenges with Archiving Trans Stories: Making Peace with the Right to be Forgotten
Karl Ponthieux Stern, Concordia University

This talk draws on research led with trans and intersex activists in France, and on an articulation of literature dedicated to archival challenges with reflections from Trans Studies, to argue for our participants´ right to be forgotten. It asks what we can do as oral historians to mitigate the historical loss.

Oral History Interviews as Potential Tools for Self-Actualisation and Collective Liberation
Gracia Dyer Jalea, Concordia University

By responding to the current day needs and interests of descendants, oral history interviews are resurrected from archives to become useful tools for self-actualization. Moving beyond mere remembrance into spaces for cocreated futures, this study explores how oral histories can be used to breaking cycles and heal division so we can learn, expand and identify new pathways forward.

Utopian Dreams: From Oral History to Speculative Narrative in Activist Nonprofits
Richenda Grazette, Concordia University

This paper explores the challenges of doing oral history of activist non-profits. It proposes a research methodology in oral history that combines lived experience with dreams, in order to imagine new potentialities. When we connect oral history to dreams in this way, we are able to tap into a “third” or in between place that opens us up to potentially making transformative changes in our relationships and collective organizing practices: an anchored form of imagination, with clear steps and learnings to grow from.ABSTRACT: This session examines creative, contextual and accountable ways of doing oral history, with a particular focus on oral history as an activist or liberatory practice. Anna Sheftel discusses the challenges of doing oral histories with student activists in Quebec for the necessity of representing the broad range of experiences, identities, and perspectives that do justice to the movement. Karl Ponthieux asks how oral histories of trans activists can compel us to make peace with the right of narrators to be forgotten, especially through refusing to have their interviews archived, and how this may transform our role as oral historians. Gracia Dyer Jalea asks how engaging with family oral history interviews can transform us, our loved ones, and our communities, especially through intergenerational engagement and co-creation. Finally, Richenda Grazette examines what it means to chronicle the experiences of people working in activist non-profits, and how to reconcile their often conflictual roles in those spaces. She draws on dreams as a potential complement to oral history that allows us not only to document, but also to imagine where these stories can take us. All together, the goal of this session is to think creatively about how we engage with the deeply contextual nature of our projects, how we remain accountable to the communities with whom we work and to the people to whom we listen, and what new strategies we can imagine as oral historians.Paper Abstracts: “It was amazing how much the disorganization was organized”: The 2012 Quebec Student Strike and Listening for DiversityIn 2012, Quebec students went on strike in opposition to draconian tuition fee hikes proposed by the provincial government. This turned into the largest and longest student strike in Quebec history, as well as a broader social movement which galvanized Quebeckers against the neoliberal politics of the era. Considerable political and sociological scholarship has been published about the strike, its tactics, politics, and legacies, but what has been under-explored is the tremendous diversity and decentralization of the moment, which allowed it to include so many different groups of people and communities, produce incredibly creative actions, and transform those who participated. This paper examines an oral history project that I conducted on the tenth anniversary of the strike, and it explores the challenges of representing a movement which was defined by its decentralization and opposition to hierarchy and leadership. Memories and experiences of the strike paint a more complex picture than the existing literature often portrays, due to the positionality of the participating activists, including factors such as: language, class, immigration status, political ideology, and race. I argue that the diverse and decentralized nature of the movement is key to its historicization, and that oral history proves to be an important way of being able to capture and represent this. In this way, methodology and outcome became inextricably intertwined in this project, as oral history interviews have become central to undoing top-down and overly reductionist conceptions of what the strike was, inviting more memories and activists and approaches into the discourse.Challenges with Archiving Trans Stories: Making Peace with the Right to be ForgottenThis talk draws upon my research on the Oral History of the ExisTransInter, a yearly demonstration led by trans and intersex activists in France since 1997. As I constructed my ethics framework to research this topic, I came across significant literature pointing out the failures of institutional archives to take care of marginalized lives, and the necessity to create community-oriented archives (Chenier 2009, 2015; Lair 2020). I became certain that archiving my own interviews with trans and intersex activists would be an absolute necessity and could only be achieved by offering the option of community-oriented projects. Most of my participants (7 out of 8) refused to archive their interviews, and most of them were even more worried by the premise that community-oriented projects would oversee the archival process. In the context of an increasingly conservative political climate in France, many thought that community-oriented archives would put them more in danger than established archival institutions should a neofascist government come to power. Although they also had the opportunity to select a more classical archival process, my participants chose to exercise their right to be forgotten (at least a little). In this talk, I stress that Oral Historians have many options to do justice to marginalized communities: we can archive their stories, we can share them with the widest audience possible, but we can also act as medieval chroniclers and be a curated imperfect window into the past. Though our instinct as historians is to preserve the “material” as close as possible to its original state, I draw on reflections from the field of Trans Studies (Baril 2018; Gill-Peterson 2022) and on my own experience as an Oral Historian of Trans experiences to defend the right of our participants to be forgotten, and the challenges for us to make peace with it.Oral history interviews as potential tools for self-actualisation and collective liberation In 2008 I interviewed my grandmother for the Montreal Life Stories project. The aim then was to preserve the firsthand account of someone who lived through

Abstract
Dartmouth College, in collaboration with the University of Kentucky, is embarking on a two-year project (2023-2025) to upgrade the Oral History Metadata Synchronizer with data annotation and data visualization capabilities drawn from the field of digital humanities. During this session, the project team will share lessons learned from our ongoing work, which has brought together oral historians, digital humanists, archivists, librarians, and undergraduate students to envision opportunities for enhancing access to oral history collections. We will discuss the history of this cross-disciplinary endeavor; engage in dialogue regarding key ethical and methodological questions that guide our current work; and invite audience members to imagine with us future possibilities for applying Natural Language Processing (NLP) tasks to oral history collections. Using OHMS as a case study, this session will engage with timely debates regarding the role of AI tools in the field of oral history. Audience members will have an opportunity to view a prototype of the OHMS application and a demonstration of its NLP functions. These examples will serve as jumping-off points for discussion about the benefits and limitations of automated data extraction methods when applied to oral history collections. The presenters will address and invite audience engagement around questions such as: How can we use the data extracted by NLP to enhance the accessibility of collections and provide new avenues for research? What safeguards and practices should we put into place to address inherent biases, inaccuracies, and privacy concerns? How can we balance automated efficiency with the importance of human review, deliberation, and care in the description of oral history collections? Through such discussions, the presenters aim to contribute to an ongoing, collaborative community of practice around the future of oral history collection and use in the age of AI.

Enhancing the Oral History Metadata Synchronizer - Douglas Boyd University of Kentucky
This presentation will share recent updates to the Oral History Metadata Synchronizer (OHMS), including its migration to the Aviary Platform and the creation of a new transcript editor. These developments will pave the way for a future version of the OHMS application with powerful capabilities in the areas of data annotation and visualization.

A Digital Humanities Approach to Oral History Collections - Edward Miller, Dartmouth College
This presentation will provide a history and overview of an NEH-funded collaboration between OHMS and the Dartmouth Digital History Initiative (DDHI), bringing digital humanities methods into the practice of oral history collection management. The project will result in a new version of OHMS that offers accessible and interactive avenues for scholarly research and teaching using oral history archives.

Natural Language Processing for Oral History Collections - Sanjana Raj, Dartmouth College
This presentation will introduce two Natural Language Processing (NLP) tasks - Named Entity Recognition and Named Entity Linking - and share practical examples of how they can be applied to oral history collections. We will also discuss advantages and challenges of using NLP tools to extract and annotate data in oral testimony.

The oral histories of Holocaust survivors inform how we view and behave in our world today. As we are among the last generation of Holocaust survivors, museum professionals find themselves at a critical moment where Holocaust history is still relevant, living history and yet we must find innovative ways to continue collecting oral histories and sharing eyewitness testimony for generations to come.
Collecting Oral Histories from Holocaust Survivors - Cori Silbernagel

Introducing Cincinnati’s Holocaust survivor community, this session discusses how the group has changed over time and the challenges HHC faces today in supporting survivors and descendants and actively collecting eyewitness testimonies. After reflecting on a long tradition of oral history collection, session participants will learn about HHC’s new Center for Storytelling, a forward-thinking initiative that engages the last generation of Holocaust survivors and their descendants to share personal stories that foster empathy and connection in our world today.

Curating Memorable Museum Experiences - Trinity Johnson

This session discusses the curatorial process behind developing permanent exhibits rooted in past and present oral history collections, and HHC’s ongoing partnership with the USC Shoah Foundation to feature, Dimensions in Testimony, an interactive, digital biography exhibition now permanently exhibited at HHC. Participants will learn about the work happening now interview local Holocaust survivors for Dimensions in Testimony and briefly interact with Al Miller’s interactive biography.

Adding Oral Histories to Our Educational Toolkit - Lauren Karas

Sharing the stories of Holocaust survivors allows school-age learners to make personal connections to history that foster empathy, inspire civic engagement, and challenge them to think critically about human behavior. The oral histories of Holocaust survivors are one of HHC’s most powerful tools in storytelling, and this session will share several case studies of using oral histories to develop student-focused museum experiences and classroom curriculum.

ABSTRACT:  In the years during and after WWII, hundreds of Holocaust survivors arrived in Cincinnati as refugees and rebuilt their lives. After experiencing enormous trauma and loss, some of these survivors organized with the purpose of ensuring that their stories are never forgotten, and their testimonies were recorded though a number of local and national oral history initiatives over many years. Today, these stories are preserved and shared at the Nancy & David Wolf Holocaust & Humanity Center (HHC), a museum in the historic train station where many Holocaust survivors first arrived in Cincinnati. Led by museum professionals at HHC, this session explores aspects of this decades-long tradition of oral history collection, including the challenges we face today in reaching those who have never shared their story before. This session also explores the ways in which eyewitness testimony serves as a foundation for the curatorial work taking place within the museum and educational work taking place outside of the museum walls. Recognizing that sharing oral histories help us personalize, localize, and humanize the Holocaust, session participants will have an opportunity to listen to oral history segments, interact with a virtual survivor biography, and hear several case studies that explore the successes and challenges of using oral histories to develop student-focused museum experiences and classroom curriculum resources. 

Presenters explore stories of older women and their connections to spirituality and social justice. The first two papers analyze interviews from a community of retired Catholic sisters in rural Kentucky and apply a gerontological lens.
Dominican Sisters of Peace: A Women’s Religious Community in Rural Kentucky Shares its Stories.
T. Laine Scales, Baylor University

The Dominican Sisters of Peace (DSOP) is a congregation whose members are mostly aging in their 80’s and 90’s and have devoted their lives to service and social justice around the world.This paper describes their social justice work in the 1960s and 1970s and the experiences of a team of three women researchers embedded for four days among them, hearing their stories.

Gerontological Perspectives to Explore Stories of Psychosocial and Spiritual Growth and Change: Stories from the Dominican Sisters of Peace
Anne Harrison, University of Kentucky

This paper applies two perspectives from the gerontological literature: the Life Course perspective (Elder) and Gerotranscendence (Tornstam). These perspectives shed light on oral history data collected in interviews from the Dominican Sisters of Peace and the resulting conversations reveal the multifaceted aspects of their bio-psycho-social and spiritual histories.ABSTRACT: The Dominican Sister of Peace, a women’s religious community in rural KY, lived through enormous changes as Vatican II (1960s) opened up choices in their daily work, housing, clothing, and religious practices, including an emphasis on social justice issues of the 1960s and 1970s. Today, their way of life is rapidly changing as the number of Catholic sisters in the US continues to decline. The first paper provides an overview of the social justice stories with examples and lessons researchers learned about oral history, relational aspects of researcher to subject and reflects on the continuum of objectivity and subjectivity in oral history. The second paper applies two perspectives from the gerontological literature: the Life Course perspective (Elder) and Gerotranscendence (Tornstam). These perspectives shed light on oral history data collected in interviews from the Dominican Sisters of Peace, and the resulting conversations reveal the multifaceted aspects of their bio-psycho-social and spiritual histories. These two frameworks focus less on “arrival” at old age and more on the dynamics of development in the oldest years. Quotes and examples will illustrate Gerotranscendence, the process of moving beyond the boundaries created by aging, including transcending self, refining one’s social relationships, and entering into something more expansive than self and society. The barriers met along the way can provide stimulus for growth rather than decline. Participants will be invited to share experiences they may have had embedded in a community where interviewing, encountering spirituality while interviewing, or applying frameworks they have used from other disciplines to synthesize oral histories

Stories from the Classroom: Oral History Pedagogy, Past and Future, Jennifer Bartlett

This presentation offers a brief overview of the use of oral history as a pedagogical tool in primary and secondary education and discusses how continuing developments in oral history practice impact our work as educators.

ABSTRACT: Oral histories are an invaluable tool in education, offering a personal and often emotive perspective. They allow students to understand historical and cultural events not just as a collection of facts and figures, but as a deeply personal human experience, providing context and depth to the information provided in textbooks. As portable recording technologies became more ubiquitous in the 1960s and 1970s, educators increasingly recognized the power of oral histories as a pedagogical tool. This has led to the development of innovative teaching methodologies that seek to incorporate oral histories into the curriculum, including student-conducted interviews, analysis of archived oral histories, and the creation of digital projects based on oral histories. However, incorporating oral histories into curricula has never been a one-size-fits-all process and designing effective and memorable oral history instruction continues to be a challenge.As we seek to instill an appreciation (or maybe even a passion) for oral history in our students, what can we learn from earlier experiments in instruction? What are the key moments and foundational projects in oral history pedagogy over the years that can inform our current practice? How are recent and current events including the pandemic and the rise of artificial intelligence impacting our work in the classroom? We all have our own teaching stories, successful and not so successful. Participants will be invited to share their own teaching experiences and insights, as well as comment on others’ unique situations, with the goal of continuing to build a community of practice dedicated to effective, compelling oral history instruction.

Educating the Undergraduate Oral Historian, Rebecca Johnson

As undergraduate instruction of oral history theory and methodology rises in popularity, this presentation will offer educators and institutions recommendations for designing a successful course, with a focus on addressing the unique challenges that come with structuring and producing undergraduate oral history projects.

ABSTRACT: Oral history theory and methodology is usually taught on the graduate level, often included in public history graduate program requirements. Having taught oral history to graduate students for a decade, I hesitated offering this course to Xavier University undergraduates, given the logistical challenges of off-campus interviews and the difficulty of assigning group projects at this collegiate level. But by partnering with the university archives and digital media center to structure the course around an on-campus project, each of my students successfully completed a full oral history experience – from researching and interviewing to transcribing and analyzing. In this presentation, I will review how the following strategies worked well for undergraduate oral history education. A partnership with the university archives was integral to its success on multiple levels. The university archivist chose the oral history subject to fill a gap in the university’s institutional knowledge. An added benefit to my students was learning about archival administration, including required metadata and donor agreement forms and understanding the accessioning process. Using the digital media lab to record each interview introduced students to state of the art recording technology in a controlled and cost-free environment. I made this course as oral as possible - supplementing readings with weekly listening sessions of oral history interviews and recordings of interviews of oral history pioneers like Alessandro Portelli and Louisa Passerini. And I attended every interview, as much for emotional support for my students as for quality control. Finally, our topic – Xavier University’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic - was a trauma subject that both interviewee and interviewer had experienced firsthand. As a class, we learned about the ethical challenges of engaging in trauma oral history for our interviewees and for ourselves – a learning and processing experience far deeper and engaging than in any course I have taught.

Undocumented Stories: Latina/o/e Oral Histories and Digital Humanities Archiving, Elena Foulis & Stephanie Aubry

This presentation argues for the need to center Latina/o/e DH projects on students’ own cultural, community (Yosso, 2005), and linguistic wealth. We use our positionality as Latinas to make personal connections and reflect on the ways ourselves and our communities can be best represented via an ethics of care approach as we consider oral history and digital humanities projects, in particular at Hispanic Serving Institutions.

ABSTRACT: US Latina/o/e Digital Humanities recovery and production efforts include historical documents, periodicals, images, maps, oral histories, etc. As Latina scholars and students, Latina/o/e DH allows us to make personal connections and reflect on the ways ourselves and our communities can be best represented via an ethics of care approach as we consider DH projects, in particular at Hispanic Serving Institutions. This presentation argues for the need to center Latina/o/e DH projects on students’ own cultural, community (Yosso, 2005), and linguistic wealth. Here, we describe the development of student projects that pay attention to the process of building, engaging, and critically reflect on our personal commitments to building accessible, multilingual archives, that center on the community’s knowledge. We detail the importance of building DH projects that are student-lead based on their own identities and bring their own cultural and community wealth to inform their process and engagement. Indeed, in our positionalities as Latina educator-scholar and mentor who participates in DH work, and an undergraduate Latina student, we find ourselves personally invested in these initiatives, thinking critically about representation and agency. We will discuss a course on Latina/o/e DH and oral history and will feature one project that included oral histories of undocumented/DACA immigrants who reflect on their journeys through higher education and beyond. It details the perspective of different individuals and their circumstances and barriers each had to overcome. Using Yosso’s model of aspirational, cultural, linguistic, resistance, social and navigational capital, we discuss designing questions that reveal the ways in which this community has been able to leverage their capital to attain educational goals. The oral histories culminated in a podcast that describes the results, along with sound bites from the interviews to illustrate participants' perspectives. Along with the podcast, a digital archive was built to provide the results for this project and information, including a timeline, story map and transcripts.
Sounding Off About Judgment: Working with Oral History in Reconceiving the Role of 'Critique' in Art, Emily Verla Bovino
The presentation explores recent research into the use of oral history among studio arts students in a higher education setting. It proposes that oral history methods be used among young artists to encourage a different approach to the critique session, one that centers an aesthetics of care through the work of sharing, rather than the faculty of judgment, whether this judgment concerns a relation to beauty and the feeling of pleasure (Kant), a relation to tectonics and the corresponding feeling of structure (Bogdanov), or to what is interesting and the sensation of receiving information in circulation (Ngai).

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“Voices from Anti-ERA States: Women’s Political Participation in Illinois, Utah and Georgia” extends across the last forty years of women’s political activism and advocacy in the United States. These papers examine how women-led activist groups and women politicians worked towards competing visions of equality. Using oral history collections from states that never ratified the Equal Rights Amendment, panelists examine the depth and breadth of how US women consolidated political power often in adverse settings that led to changes at the local and national level. The presenters will also share their take on contemporary implications of their narrators’ work.

ABSTRACT: Spanning the last forty years of women’s political activism and advocacy in the United States, this panel engages with oral history as a methodology and as source material to examine how women responded to national events by consolidating political power in local settings.Holly Kent’s paper makes use of Illinois ERA oral histories from feminists, conservative activists, legislators, and community members from the 1980s. It offers new insight into existing understandings of Second Wave feminism and conservative women’s activism during this era. It also considers current challenges for scholars working with these oral history collections, and suggests ways to draw on these sources to enrich U.S. history and women’s history courses.Tiffany Greene’s paper tracks contributions of women legislators in Utah from 1990-2015 and analyzes various waves of Republican and Democratic women winning statewide offices in a politically conservative state. Utilizing oral histories of the women legislators themselves, Greene addresses whether political affiliation mattered for the issues that were important to Utah women during this time period, and how conservative and liberal politics shaped women’s participation in the state legislature. Ellen Rafshoon’s paper traces the unfolding of the Blue Wave in Georgia since the 2016 Presidential election. This women-led movement has produced striking results that have reshaped local and national political landscapes. Conducting oral histories with women activists, candidates and politicians, Rafshoon tells the story of the change from a one-party Republican state to a highly competitive battleground. It also discusses the challenges of conducting interviews about a currently unfolding event. The friction between female groups is fundamental to the three papers in this panel. Panelists examine competing goals of activist groups and political parties and highlight ways contemporary scholars can utilize oral history to complicate the narrative of women’s political participation in the United States. ​​​​

Embracing the Past, Present, and Future of Socialist Movement in India: Unveiling Narratives through Oral History, Rajesh Prasad & Praveena Patel

This project aims to explore the history and evolution of the Socialist movement in India through oral history narratives. It will use personal stories from different generations of people who were involved in or affected by the movement to reveal its diverse and complex impacts on the society and politics of India. It will also analyze how the idea of Socialism in India has changed over time and how different political parties have used it for their own purposes. The project will also reflect on the challenges and benefits of oral history work in India and its implications for the future of the movement.

ABSTRACT: This paper explores the extensive history of the Socialist Movement in India by analyzing more than fifty oral history narratives. These narratives provide a diverse range of perspectives that go beyond traditional sources such as textbooks and statistics. By immersing in these personal experiences, both pre- and post-independence India, this paper will uncover hidden stories, illuminate forgotten perspectives, and gain profound insights into the movement's enduring influence on the nation's socio-political fabric.The paper will attempt to extend beyond archives, engaging with contemporary socialist leaders, activists, and individuals touched by the movement. This intergenerational dialogue allows the paper to trace the evolution of the "idea of Socialism" in India, revealing how perceptions and interpretations have transformed within the country's dynamic political landscape. This paper will also shed light on the intricate relationship between socialist ideologies and political strategies by examining how various political parties in India have utilized socialism as a tool for mobilization and, at times, manipulation.It should be noted that more than just data collection, this project will be a journey of empathy and reflection. Therefore, this paper will examine the inspirations, challenges, and innovations that have shaped oral history practices in India, offering a critical analysis of the impact such work has on both practitioners and communities. Through this multifaceted approach, this paper aims to bridge the past, present, and future of the Indian socialist movement, ensuring its vibrant legacy continues to resonate in the years to come.

The Williamsburg Bray School - The Past Speaks to Its Present, Tonia Merideth

The Williamsburg Bray School had been hiding in plain sight on the campus of William & Mary for over 200 years until dendrochronology confirmed it to be the building the school operated out of for its first five years of operation. The story of the 300 or more free and enslaved children had been obscured for history. The descendant community has played an active role in guiding the interpretation of the Williamsburg Bray School by participating in seminars and lectures highlighting the legacy of the Bray "scholars" with the hope/expectation that the content of oral histories conducted on the descendant community will guide the interpretation of the site when it opens in the fall of 2024.

ABSTRACT: The Williamsburg Bray School operated from 1760 to 1774 and educated over 300 free and enslaved children in Williamsburg, Virginia. While the story of the Bray school was used in interpretations at Colonial Williamsburg, the story mainly focused on the school's white teacher, Anne Wager. In 2021, the building that housed the Bray School the first five years of its operation was discovered hiding in plain sight on the campus of William & Mary. It was scheduled for demolition when dendrochronology confirmed it to be the building the school operated out of. William & Mary, together with the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, created the Bray School Initiative to rediscover the legacy of the Bray School and search for the descendants of the students who attended the school. Only three years of rosters exist for its fourteen years of operation. My presentation seeks to tell the story of the school that has not been told, discuss the efforts of the descendant community (of which I am a member) to be a part of telling the story of their ancestors, and use the content in the oral histories I am conducting to help guide the interpretation of the building scheduled to open in the fall of 2024.

Historians have been using oral history methodology to diversify the histories of colleges and universities by providing a more holistic accounting of institutions of higher education. Oral history projects at the University of Iowa, Trinity University, and Southern Methodist University are exploring how Latinx, AAPI, and Black communities have made Predominantly White Institutions more equitable since the mid-twentieth century.

ABSTRACT: Students, faculty, and staff have created oral history projects to provide a holistic accounting of institutions of higher education. Focusing on Predominantly White Institutions (PWI), oral history projects at the University of Iowa, Trinity University, and Southern Methodist University have yielded successes in producing public-facing initiatives and research articles about each university’s history. The three undertakings have created digital history projects, published articles in academic journals, gathered the attention of local newspapers, and hosted symposiums to highlight the histories of historically excluded communities in the U.S. South and Midwest. Undergraduate and graduate students have highlighted Latinx history at Trinity University, AAPI student activism at the University of Iowa, and Black, Latinx, and AAPI histories at Southern Methodist University. Thanks to the Mellon Initiative, students, faculty, and staff (including Lee Denney) created the Conmemorando a la Comunidad: Latinx Experiences at Trinity University digital history project to generate a sense of belonging among the university’s Latinx community. Ph.D. student Jin Chang has conducted over fifty-seven oral histories focused on the contributions of Asian and Asian American students to the University of Iowa after finding few sources in the university’s Asian American Coalition folder. Oral History Project Manager and Ph.D. candidate Laura Narvaez has conducted over thirty oral histories of Black, Latinx, and AAPI alums to expand the oral history collection at Southern Methodist University. Laura has led an oral history "Summer Field School" in partnership with city and national nonprofits to strengthen connections between the university and Dallas' Black community.These oral history initiatives provide a more inclusive history of PWIs and create public-facing initiatives that correct historical inequities. They work with historically excluded populations to rebuild relationships between higher education institutions and the community and provide current students with a greater understanding of their respective institutions' past. 

Practices of Care and Community: How Roots in Social Work and Folklore Shape Today’s Oral History Ethos, Anna Kaplan

By diversifying the histories of oral history practices, we bolster the widening array of current projects and methodologies. This session highlights concrete examples from within academia (social work, folklore, etc.) and community-born traditions to offer today’s oral historians a range of approaches from which to draw.

ABSTRACT: There is growing emphasis on oral history traditions outside of academia. This presentation extends that effort back to academic and institutional oral history, further destabilizing Allan Nevins’ and the history discipline’s hold on the practice. In my on-going research on Black women’s oral history at institutions in the early 20th century (some predating Nevins), I have encountered overlap between social work, folklore, and oral history. This presentation focuses on Ophelia Settle Egypt and Susie R.C. Byrd to illuminate them.Egypt had a social work MA when Charles Johnson recruited her for sociological fieldwork in the late 1920s at Fisk University. He strove to understand impoverished African American communities’ perspectives on the resources and public policies that they needed. During that research, formerly enslaved Tennesseans told Egypt their memories of slavery, and she collected 100 oral histories alongside Johnson’s sociological questionnaires. Egypt’s social work training—to which she returned after five years at Fisk—not Johnson’s prescribed questions, spurred her to deeply listen to these individuals. The ethics of care and advocacy underlying social work shaped her oral history approach in ways that resonate with many oral history projects today. Soon after, the Great Depression forced Byrd to quit graduate school. She began social work training before joining the Federal Writers’ Project’s Virginia Negro Writers’ Project. A former teacher with a social work introduction, Byrd approached oral history as community-building. Elders gathered groups of 30+ people where Byrd recorded individual life histories and collective recollections of folklore. This presentation thus explores the relationship between oral history, social work, and the burgeoning field of folklore in the early 1900s as foundations of academic/institutional oral history. By focusing on Egypt and Byrd, it highlights the central tenants extending from their work to current projects and best practices: care and community.

Inheriting a 27 year old Oral History Program...Now What?, Jennifer Rogers

This session will cover the Now What: the steps in seeing what the well-established oral history program was, evaluating, educating myself and my department on Oral History, then doing oral history, then we evaluated again, leading us to build oral history education and methodology into all aspects of the department's work. The session will engage in discussion of the pain points and how to give a long-standing oral history program a future.

ABSTRACT: The presentation is a chronicle of the development and transformation of the Living History studio under my leadership beginning in 2021, noting significant changes since the previous director’s 27-year tenure. The preceding program was quite prolific in conducting interviews, and there were several logistical and ethical issues in how Oral History as a discipline was being practiced. The changes that will be highlighted include directing a complete studio cleanout and redesign, championing new methods to conduct Oral History, using continuous training, the entire staff learned additional methods to conduct Oral History interviews, such as group interviews, live interviews, and short-form interviews, all of which can be equally if not more enriching for audiences than the regular-form Oral Histories. Sound/audio equipment education was introduced to the entire staff from a professional sound engineer. The session will discuss at length how the entire Oral History process for our program has developed within the contemporary technological age, specifically regarding how conducting virtual interviews became “the new normal” during and after the pandemic. The session will discuss how the program still does and will continue to face growing pains that come with the redevelopment of an unparalleled alumni-centered Living History studio in the United States. We will further the tenets of Oral History by continuing to initiate project-based Oral Histories and extending Oral History education at Georgia Tech through continuing the Silent Voices Fellowship and Internship, both of which are based on uplifting diverse, unheard alumni voices while engaging in the complete Oral History process. We are working towards our past, present, and future interviews towards being useful for historians, researchers, and the public.