Oral History School-3

From Defining the Plan to Estimating the Costs of Oral History Project

Adjusted by Maryam Asadi Jafari
Translated by Ruhollah Golmoradi

2024-8-21

According to Iranian Oral History Website, the third online session of “Oral History School” was held by Iranian History Association on Monday evening, July 8, 2024. In this session, Dr. Mehdi Abolhasani Taraghi gave a lecture focused on “Finding a Topic and Defining the Plan in Oral History”.

Referring to importance of recording the oral history of families of disabled veterans, Dr. Mehdi Abolhasani Taraghi stated at the beginning of this session, “There is a group of disabled veterans with more than 50% disability, who are divided into three groups: neuropsychiatric, spinal cord amputation, and chemical disabled veterans. These persons are disabled highly and there have been much talks about them; But their families have been neglected and they have not been dealt with. These people have been involved in acute issues and problems since the father of the family faced this level of disability. In recent years, groups have interviewed wives of chemical and neuropsychological disabled veterans with 70% of disability about what issues and problems the veteran's family, children, and parents face. These issues are also part of our history. We had 8 years of war, but the positive and negative effects and consequences have remained until today. With the mechanism of oral history, we examined the 40-year period of disabled veterans and their families' problems, and according to the conditions and requirements of the interview, we found out even the most private issues and problems of these families. Of course, all this will be archived and not allowed to be published, but it should be collected. The situation that happened in the West and the oral history of disabled veterans' families have been collected and published. But according to the culture and limitations of our society, this oral history should be archived and later, we can take qualitative research out of it. So, for oral history, an infinity of topics and titles can be defined. Unlike other methods that are less expensive, oral history costs a lot. Therefore, we must receive support and have employers in order to be funded.”

Referring to the diversity and multiplicity of developments in the current society, he emphasized, “We must pay attention to the seemingly unimportant, but important issues in the social-economic-cultural life of the society, so that as history graduates, we can create jobs and entrepreneur and not be restricted in the limited related jobs in our own major. Oral history has provided this opportunity and at least during the last 12 years, professors, universities and students of history have been able to make a relative use of their expertise and skills. History is not just for learning from the past, but we have to plan for our future and tomorrow. Therefore, implementing oral history projects with innovative topics and making political, social, economic and cultural managers aware of the importance of oral history is perhaps one of the duties of historians. Undoubtedly, in developed countries and especially in the West, there is nothing without history and historian. All the industries and economic activities of the West have a history and a historian, and in the policy areas, they also draw the path of their progress in the future. History is not only for learning lessons from the past, but this lesson is used to improve and pave the way for progress in the future. Oral history is related to contemporary history and our lives, and the benefits and harms of this history are related to us. So it has many uses. Perhaps the only characteristic of oral history is its cost and time-consuming nature, and the end of each project can be the beginning of the next project. There are about 12 areas or fields that we can draw topic from for oral history. I will talk about politics at the end because of the bottlenecks and problems it has in its nature, it leaves our work unfinished. Sometimes some people are interested in working on Pahlavi era. But on the one hand, there are few specialized lecturers and professors, and on the other hand, the access to resources is limited, and discretion makes history faculty members in universities not engaged in this issue. Even if a project is done, the whole thing is not said. Many sources of our political history inside the country are far from accessible. In the same way, our oral sources are not easily accessible inside the country and the oral sources outside the country cannot be reached either. Therefore, we have many reasons to leave the field of politics and political history for last.”

In describing the necessary conditions for choosing the topic of the oral history project, Dr. Abolhasani emphasized, “In every historical research, the boundaries and geography of that field and topic must be clear. Also, the title you choose should be inclusive and exclusive. The next point is whether the qualitative data obtained at the end of the project is important or not? Are there enough resources in the field of historical research available or not? Is the target population and statistics acceptable or not? In oral history, we should consider whether the narration is exclusive to one person or one center? Or can we find multiple narrators, centers and references for our narration, and examine the issue from different dimensions and views? Considering these issues, we should enter into different areas: the areas of “judiciary or justice”, “health and nutrition”, “social”, “educational”, “administrative”, “security”, “city and urban engineering”, “cultural". and art”, “Economy and Livelihood”, and “Politics”. Of course, this arrangement does not have a specific priority. As you can see, many of these areas are apparently non-political. But when the work is done, it gets the color of politics. Unfortunately, in the whole world in general and in Iran in particular, everything is politicized and perhaps there is no escape from it.

The view of policy makers and planners in each period, political-cultural-social situations, open or closed political space are also very important in choosing work areas. For example, we worked on a project in the field of social history, background and history of urban cleaning in Isfahan, and the political, social, and cultural situations was also influential in the same interviews. Of course, it varies from period to period. For some periods, we implemented good plans and moved forward, but in some places we got blocked. It should be seen what the concerns are. Urban management in big cities is faced with issues that we should do need assessment and consider concerns of the city. We have always said that we have to choose partial and shipshape subjects so that the obtained data would be accurate. Budget, facilities, and labor force should be also taken into consideration in choosing the field and subject.

Dr. Mehdi Abolhasani Taraghee introduced the field of education as the agent of social transformations in all eras and said, “This topic includes many subcategories such as old religious schools, seminaries, schools, adult literacy (Akaber), and the literacy movement. [Literacy] movement teachers can be a topic; for example, the oral history of teachers of the literacy movement of a city or a village. Then it can be divided into female or male teachers. Then you can go to those who have become educated through the literacy movement. These people will be our target community. Educational-administrative classes, national, non-profit and government institutions, universities and research institutes and even Sepah-e Danesh (literacy corps) can be our topic. You can even work on editing and changing the content of textbooks and interview the authors of the textbooks.”

He further discussed capacities of oral history in social sphere and said, “Stratification and all social classes can be recorded in an oral history [project]. For example, “Lumpens”, rootless groups, those who fasten themselves on society and are agents of politicians are present in all eras, and there are documents in periodical newspapers related to them. Two dissertations have been written about this, one of which has been defended in Isfahan University. Ms. Homa Sarsar interviewed Shaaban Jafari and published his oral history. In social history, other issues such as city and urbanization, slum-dwelling, and development of cities should also be addressed. Interviews should be done with urban managers and slum dwellers. The traffic is also a major problem that various plans have been presented to resolve it. The experience of city managers and their plans to control traffic and related issues can be also a subject of research. Charities in cities, population, migration and brain drain also have the capacity to be dealt with in oral history. For example, the causes and factors affecting external migration can be extracted through oral history. Ministries, their integration, separation or establishment will also be a subject of oral history. Other subjects are administrative ranks of managers, civil institutions, laws and regulations governing them, clients, communication system, regulations and their influence, administrative health and corruption, and rule of law and nepotism. A good oral history project can be organized by extracting historical data. In the field of economy and livelihood, which is also origin of social changes, labor movements, factories, workshops, incomes, expenses, recession, inflation and famine, rates and exchanges, exchanges, guilds and its layers and old and new professions, the loan banks that emerged, had a short life, and risked people's capital, all can be good subjects for oral history projects. The following areas can be also addressed in the field of security: The armed forces, AJA (Islamic Republic of Iran Army), IRGC, and Basij which create stability and security in the country, the front line and the rear, military colleges, barracks, Police and Criminal Investigation Department and security organs before and after the revolution.

Referring to the projects carried out regarding the corona disease, he said, “A group of oral practitioners have interviewed patients, doctors and managers about issues such as quarantine, prevention and vaccines, but there are still works to be done. Doctors with various specialties, nurses, medical schools across the country, clinics, health centers, hospitals and pharmacies can also be the subject of oral history. Dr. Hossein Yaghini did a quasi-oral history work in Isfahan and collected valuable information from the oldest pharmacies in Isfahan and published it in several books. The family sphere is the central core of gaining experience. Types of urban, rural, nomadic families, profession and education, and even family history can be extracted. We have important and big cultural-political-economic families in different cities. This work—that is, compilation of family history—has been done in England for hundreds of years. We start from the end of each family and family documents. In the field of politics, foreign relations, movements, riots, government and parliament, and elections of these two branches can be considered. Mrs. Dr. Zahra Shajiei published several books about different periods of the Majlis, but they lack oral data. Because the representatives of pre-revolution era are still alive and they should be interviewed too. In the cultural field, compiling biographies of writers and famous figures, influential and stream-maker artists in various fields of art, film and cinema, radio and television, the oral history of newspapers such as Ettella’at, Keyhan, and various magazines with different sizes can be extracted. In the field of justice, you can also talk to famous lawyers who have a lot to say about social and political events. Courts, prisons, detention centers and even Arizeh-Nevis (in Iran, a person who composes complaints or petitions for common people) have the capacity to be recorded as oral history.

In the final part of this online meeting, Dr. Abolhasani stated, “What we have put forward for you summarily today is as follows: To design the project, first define the topic. Then specify its geography and scope, and after that its time, and finally estimate the costs. Once we have identified the narrators, we must choose and categorize some of them in a reasonable, scientific and logical way. Sometimes the narrators are not in our city and sometimes they are abroad and the interview should be done in person or in absentia. We must weigh all these aspects; classify the narrators and estimate the cost. In historical research, you must identify resources. Because they may not be available. Keep in mind dead heading pay and even purchasing flowers or a box of sweets on the first meeting with the narrator. It is important to estimate all these costs. Because you must have financial ability when presenting the plan to the employer. So, let's determine the conditions, aspects, limits of the plan so that we don't get helpless in the middle of the road and don't leave the plan half-finished. An oral history project, from compiling theoretical topics to interviews, implementation, coding, archiving, and providing audio, image and text files to the employer, has its own costs. The costs of theoretical discussions and research on the subject should be mentioned in the proposal. For example, write costs of 3 months of research and collection of documents and determine a figure for each item. The interview seems you sit for an hour. You ask and answer and provide a figure. They may ask you in the proposal defense meeting that why have you set aside 1 million for each interview session? The point is that you have identified and classified the narrators, have convinced the narrator to the interview, and the interview has been result of all these efforts. These issues should be justifiable before the employer. Besides, they should know that behind this interview lies the experience of years of studying, teaching and working. So you have to defend the figure you provide and don't present your power to others for free. Audio and video interviews have separate costs. If your project is important, consider hiring a professional photography team. The employer must pay for it. Because output of the work to be valued there. The third cost is the cost of conducting interviews. It is a hard work that is done in different ways and we must consider the right of the forces who do it. It is true that there are new software and technologies for implementing sound, but these software are not able to convert every word and expression from speech to text. Another cost is coding. It means that the interview indexes should include persons, places and topics. This is the end of the list of expenses. Now, if they want you to do compilation, its costs would be separate, and according to the position of the author or the interviewer—if he/she wants to be author as well—the cost of compilation is calculated."

The end

“Oral History School”-1

“Oral History School”-2