Oral history and its increasing value

The most important profit of oral history is historians’ access to firsthand information. The narrator of a memory is a non-mediated witness; books, newspapers and report-writers are not the transformers of information.

History from below: Women and Nietzsche View

The "history from below" approach in historiography takes women into account as a group mostly overlooked or largely marginalized by conventional historical accounts. Women have always been disregarded by world historians and philosophers from Aristotle to contemporary wits who did not bother to address them in humiliating terms from time to time.

Oral history, Local History, Anthropological Research

If the folklorist moves outside genre collecting and the oral historian moves beyond interviews with the political and business elite, the two can meet in recording folk prejudices, rumors, biases, awes, hatreds,loyalties, phobias, stereotypes, obsessions and fantasies, argued American folklorist and Professor of Modern Languages and folklore at Western Kentucky University Larry Danielson.

A Diary of Iran and Transoxiana (beyond the (Oxus) river)

Mr. “Ka ge aki Oeba” who his pen name is “Ka ko e” had published his reports about his endless interesting traveling and visiting to different countries and regions throughout the world.

History from Below: Women

Women constitute a powerful social group that was largely ignored in the standard historical texts before the 1950s. In the mid-20th century, an approach dubbed as "history from below", emerged by influential feminist figures in the US and Europe which sought to re-discover women's role in the history and highlight their status in historical events.

Dos and Don’ts in Writing Oral History

Oral history is one of a new science resource in writing history by which become manifest in the begging of Islamic Revolution in Iran. But, oral history by its own definition is a categorical research that pays to gathering and keeping historical data derived by personal private and social group experiences regarding with gaining the benefit from the technical and special tools.

Oral History of Muharram

In Shi'ia Islam, the lunar month of Muharram is mingled with commemoration of the martyrdom of the third Shi'a Imam (Hussain ibn Ali, peace be upon him) on the day of Ashura (Muharram 10, October 10, 680 CE) in the land of Karbala, Iraq. Even though, it now passes more than 1200 years from the brutal killing of Imam Hussein and 72 of his companions, Shi'as have handed down the story of the savage slaughter by heart from generation to generation. Everyone in the Shi'a society has an impression of the story in accordance with what they have heard from their fathers or religious preachers in gatherings of Shi'as to mourn for the great loss during Muharram.

Challenges of Oral Historiography of War

Oral historiography is the process of recording history by in-person interviews whose transcripts are stored without any subjective interpretations. Oral historiography is a form of interview in which the interviewer has a brief understanding of a given topic and seeks to reach out for details by the questions they ask the interviewees to clarify a historical event from the viewpoints of an eyewitness. This needs thorough policy-making, well-defined objectives and research projects as well as an audience, interviewers and interviewees. Generally speaking, oral historiography of sacrifice and martyrdom is faced with two major challenges:

Listening to the voices from Kenya

The culling of imperial archives led me to turn to oral history. But for many scholars, the official myths of the British Empire persist. 'Africans make up stories." I heard this refrain over and again while researching imperial history in Kenya. I was scarcely surprised when it came from former settlers and colonial officials living out their days in the country's bucolic highlands. But I was concerned to find that this position took on intractable proportions among some historians. At the time of decolonisation, colonial officials destroyed and removed tons of documents from Kenya. To overcome this, I collected hundreds of oral testimonies and integrated them with fragments of remaining archival evidence to challenge entrenched views of British imperialism.

A Closer Look at Community Partnerships

This article charts the early planning stages of a community oral history and civil rights project designed for radio. Along with documenting the intricacies of a community partnership, it explores how the digital age complicates informed consent and challenges our ability to uphold access and use restrictions promised to narrators. History runs deep in the small, storied town of Yellow Springs, Ohio.