Experts’ Answers to Oral History Questions

100 Question/12

Translated by Mandana Karimi

2026-1-5

We asked several researchers and activists in the field of oral history to express their views on oral history questions. The names of each participant are listed at the beginning of their answers, and the text of all answers will be published on this portal by the end of the week. The goal of this project is to open new doors to an issue and promote scientific discussions in the field of oral history.

In this project, a question is asked every Saturday, and we ask experts to present their views in the form of a short text (about 100 words) by the end of the week. All answers will be published together so that the audience can compare and analyze the views.

The content is the opinions of the senders and does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the Oral History website. Although the answers are supposed to be based on about 100 words, in order to be polite and not to leave the discussion incomplete, in some cases, answers longer than this are also accepted.

The experts are asked to submit their answers by Sunday night so that all answers can be published on Tuesday.

Question 12:

What are the most important obstacles to verifying oral history narratives?

Hassan Beheshtipour

The verification of oral history narratives faces obstacles that arise from the nature of human memory and the conditions of narrative production. Memory is not a fixed, archival phenomenon, but rather a reconstructible one, influenced by the passage of time, dominant discourses, subsequent conversations, and the narrator’s current situation. Conscious or unconscious selectivity, meaningful silences, and the fusion of experiences are among the most important challenges to validating narratives. Furthermore, oral narratives are the product of the interaction between narrator and interviewer, and the conditions of the interview, power relations, and language used influence the final content. The lack or bias of complementary written documents and the difficulty of accessing raw archives also limit the possibility of external validation of narratives.
In this context, it is necessary to distinguish between two types of validity: historical validity and empirical validity. Oral history may be inaccurate in historical detail, but the lived experience, emotions, and meanings it reflects can be quite authentic and illuminating. Verification in oral history does not mean eliminating subjectivity, but rather critical analysis, contextualizing the narrative, and clarifying limitations—an approach that makes the past more polyphonic and humanely understandable.

Mohammad Mehdi Bedarvand

The most important obstacles to verifying oral history narratives begin with the human nature of memory. Memory is not an exact archive, but rather a reconstructive one; the narrator unintentionally rearranges events according to the passage of time, emotions, social status, and subsequent experiences. Self-censorship and security, political, or ethical considerations also cause parts of the narrative to be omitted or changed. On the other hand, the interviewer’s empathy or preconceptions can direct the course of questions in such a way that the narrative becomes one-sided. The lack of contemporaneous written documents, the lack of access to conflicting narratives, and the lack of a precise chronology make reconciliation difficult. Sometimes, later mythologizing of individuals or events distances the narrative from historical reality. Ultimately, the confusion of personal experience with subsequent analysis and judgment blurs the boundary between “what happened” and “what is understood.”

Gholamreza Khakestar

One of the fundamental issues in oral history is the verification of narratives. How and on what basis narratives are evaluated has always been a major challenge for researchers in this field. Determining the credibility and accuracy of a narrative before publication requires precision, experience, and scientific methods. The interviewer’s proficiency and experience can help to some extent in identifying inaccuracies, but it is usually in supplementary interviews and comparisons of narratives that the truth becomes clearer. The narrator’s honesty plays an important role in the clarity of the narrative, and if it exists, large parts of the problems reduces. Also, matching claims with written and visual documents is an important tool for verification. However, issues such as concealment of facts, heroism, mythologizing, and claiming ownership of historical events are common challenges in oral history. Lack of access to documents and unscientific expediency are also among the most important obstacles to verifying narratives.

Mohammad Mehdi Abdollahzade

It is neither possible nor necessary to verify everything that an oral history interviewee says; although the historian seeks substantiated and factual information, in some cases the narrator may, unconsciously or for conscious reasons, not narrate in accordance with reality. Therefore, only those narrations that are significantly different or inconsistent with the prevailing narrations in that field or that, based on evidence, are reasonable to doubt their acceptance should be verified. The most important obstacles to validation are:

• There is no evidence in that case or these evidences are not credible.
• The narration is unique and there is no other narration in that case.
• The interviewer and compiler are so influenced by the interviewee’s personality that they neglect verification.
• The necessary explanations are not made using reliable sources.

Shafigheh Niknafs

Verification can be done in several ways:

1. Comparing the narrative with similar narratives in other memoirs or interviews
2. Matching the narrative with documents and correspondence from administration and reports, photographs, newsreels, and the press
3. Considering the multiplicity of parallel narratives
4. Internal and external criticism of the narrative - any flaw in any of these can be an obstacle to verification.

On the other hand, some experts believe that the interviewee’s narratives are shaped by their political, religious, moral, or class beliefs; therefore, their narrative is more a reflection of their perception of reality than the "raw reality" itself. Their narrative tells us how people of a period understood the world and what values ​​were important to them. This understanding is very important for social and cultural history. Therefore, we should not look for a narrative that is 100% consistent with reality.

Hamid Ghazvini

The most important obstacles can be divided into two parts: first, obstacles related to the narrator, such as expressing general memories and not going into details, dissatisfaction with verification, linking memories to the narrator’s personal interests, and expressing material that is completely private and cannot be evaluated through other sources. Second, professional obstacles, such as the researcher’s scientific and professional weakness, lack of other narratives, lack of reliable documents and evidence, lack of cooperation from research centers, lack of agreement from other narrators to express memories, time-consuming and costly verification, political and security sensitivities, family fringes, indigenous and local affiliations, and other such issues that present verification with problems.

Abolfat’h Mo’men

In oral history, verification is essential to transform narratives into reliable archival data, as this information is later used as a research source and cultural reference. However, monologues and memoirs that are published without a vetting process and in a hurry usually lack sufficient validation and reduce research accuracy. Given the research, cultural, and commercial bios of oral history, verification is necessary in bioresearch by relying on documents, consistent narratives, and the mastery of the interviewer. Oral history should be understood as an ongoing process, not a one-time project, because incomplete and exaggerated information can obscure the truth. The most important obstacles to verification include: the interviewer’s lack of mastery, sanctification of the narrator, immediate trust in the statements, myth-making, superficiality, difficulty in accessing the narrator over time, the cost and time-consuming nature of the process, and the haste in publishing and spreading monologue memoirs.

Seyyed Mohammad Sadegh Feyz

The most important of these obstacles can be stated as follows:

• The charismatic personality of the speaker, which makes it impossible for him to make a mistake in his speech.
• The narrator’s self-confidence in describing events, which forces the interviewer and the audience to accept everything he says.
• The interviewer’s lack of information and his avoidance of searching for sources.
• The speaker’s presentation of "single news" which makes it impossible to verify it among sources.
• The editor or interviewer’s ignorance of the narrator’s background.
• The interference of political, social, and personal analysis and perspectives during the narration of memories, which practically distorts the narration of the event and makes it indistinguishable from the original event.

Abolfazl Hassanabadi

The issue of the validity of oral history data has always been one of the objections raised by research centers and some researchers, especially in the field of history, and this has been one of the reasons for writing oral history standards and using the term “oral evidence” instead of “documents.” The process of verifying oral history narratives begins with the definition of the project and the initial interview, ends during the interview and archive, and will be completed in the event of publication. The challenges of this verification include the lack of a correct definition of the topic, the selection of an unrelated interviewer and interviewee, and the conduct of a non-standard interview. From another perspective, it can be categorized into “internal verification of oral history content” at the time of information creation and “external verification” at the time of publication.