Oral History and Families: a Neglected Methodological Frontier. Exploring the Ethics, Politics, Archives and the Afterlives of Oral History Interviews and the Family
Time: 2025-09-18 12:00 - 14:00
Location: Large Hall A at Auditorium Maximum
Chairman: Mary Stewart
Events within this Session
Busting the Myth of ‘Cosy’ Family History: Exploring the Complex Ethics of Telling, Listening and Accessing Family Stories in Both Public and Private Archives
Type: session | Language: English
Time: 12:00 - 14:00
Abstract
Busting the myth of ‘cosy’ family history: exploring the complex ethics of telling, listening and accessing family stories in both public and private archives
Speakers
Having His Voice on CD is the Most Precious Thing I Could Have”: Are Oral Histories Recorded at the End of Life Always a Comfort for Family?
Type: session | Language: English
Time: 12:00 - 14:00
Abstract
This presentation will discuss oral history work with individuals diagnosed with life-limiting illnesses. Life stories recorded towards the end of life can help reinforce sense of identity, provide opportunities to affirm life and boost self-esteem and positivity in times of difficulty and change. Within these oral histories, family and family issues can be significant themes, delicate details might be shared and happy memories mingle with sad and disappointing ones. However family are not always included in preparations for interviews and some participants intentionally avoid talking to relatives about their recording. Whilst family members are generally pleased to receive a loved one’s voice recording, and feedback indicates that they can be very precious, it is apparent some avoid listening as they fear it will be painful. As participants are encouraged to tell their stories in their own way, recordings can include distressing or uncomplimentary information, events and people may be omitted and sensitive topics related in detail. Upset may also be prompted by the immediacy of hearing an ill and frail voice and recalling the circumstances in which it was recorded. These considerations contrast with the oft-heard narrator motivation of wanting to create a lasting audio memory for family. Participants independently share their digital recordings therefore follow-up to gauge reactions and offer support is problematic. Hence oral history with people near the end of life presents some difficult to resolve ethical challenges, raising the question of whether recordings are always thought of as ‘the most precious thing I could have’
Speakers
The Role of Family When Co-Creating Defined and Undefined Oral Histories in Palliative and Supportive Care
Type: session | Language: English
Time: 12:00 - 14:00
Abstract
Oral history in palliative and supportive care enables patients to record their memories as family legacy and archived public history. They are usually referred by healthcare professionals and interviewed by trained volunteers. This presentation draws on my PhD ‘Understanding oral history in palliative and supportive care: A constructivist grounded theory study’ to explore how family can influence the oral history process for the interviewee and vice-versa. This could be in their external relationships, as part of the interview when interviewees talk about their family, and after when it is listened to by family and the interviewee. A key finding in my PhD was how interviewee motives and interview narratives related to different family and public audiences. For instance, two research interviewees created personal legacies for family whereas two other interviewees, who both mentioned a communication disconnect with their children, recorded oral histories primarily for the public archive with family legacy as a secondary motive. In several research interviews there were ethical dilemmas which arose concerning family relationships and the oral history process. These included how an interviewee chose to discuss a child they had become estranged from, or whether to speak about past intimate relationships at the risk of upsetting a current partner. I discuss these challenges in relation to testing the basic social process of my grounded theory. Central to oral history in palliative and supportive care is giving voice, in which the opportunity to remember and reflect leads to autonomy and social interaction, which can be dignifying. I argue this model can be used as an ethical framework for training oral historians in palliative and supportive care to better understand and support interviewees in sharing their narratives, and family in their involvement and receiving the oral histories.
Speakers
"I Wouldn't Have Spoken to Her About it Otherwise": the Family Oral History Interview as a Catalyst for Change
Type: session | Language: English
Time: 12:00 - 14:00
Abstract
This paper is based on a doctoral project entitled The Narrative Inheritance of the “Ceasefire Babies”: An Oral History of Conflict-Era Family Storytelling in Northern Ireland, in which members of the generation born after the cessation of the thirty-year conflict in Northern Ireland known as the Troubles were asked to relate what stories their families had told them about that time. These “ceasefire babies” were also encouraged to reflect on how those stories impacted how they felt about and understood the recent violent past. This paper looks specifically at two interviews conducted with a thirty-year-old woman from Derry named Constance, whose parents were active as Republican paramilitaries during the 1970s and 1980s. While both her parents had spent time in prison, Constance knew far more about her father’s past than her mother’s, and in her initial interview she expressed that she wished her parents - especially her mother - felt able to speak more openly with her about their experiences. At the same time, she described an ambivalence around initiating such conversations, feeling reluctant to bring up memories they would find difficult just to satisfy her own curiosity. Constance’s participation in the project prompted a series of highly emotional conversations with her mother, during which she revealed traumatic details about her past experiences. For Constance, this proved to be a deeply profound experience. She took part in a second interview nine months after the first, in which she reflected on the power of oral history as a tool for change, remarking that the conversations were only made possible by her involvement in the project. This paper uses Constance’s experience to examine the impact oral history interviews can have on familial dynamics, as well as arguing that these non-traditional oral history methodologies can serve as powerful tools that help enable historians to explore difficult stories and reveal otherwise untold stories.
Speakers
Reconnecting Broken Threads Through Oral History and Archival Research: Healing Encounters in Grybow, Poland
Type: session | Language: English
Time: 12:00 - 14:00
Abstract
As is well documented, the seismic events of the Holocaust shattered the continuities of family and wider histories. This paper uses the Einhorn family, originally from Grybow, southeast of Krakow, as a case study of healing. An early attempt in 1997 to find the gravestone of great-grandfather Abraham Einhorn in Grybow ended in rainy desolation in the then neglected and overgrown Jewish cemetery. It seemed like there were no traces left. This paper reflects on a journey of healing and reconnection, with place, with family, with the past. Kamil Kmak and the group Saga-Grybow (https://www.saga-grybow.com/) have gathered much information and made connections with descendants of former inhabitants. During a brief recent visit to Grybow, magical meetings and miraculous events occurred. Mrs Wiktoria Zieba-Firek (nee Walor), a 90-year-old living oral history archive, recounted detailed, vivid memories of the Einhorn family members who lived across the courtyard of the apartment block she lived in as a child, as well as of her father and uncle who were active in the Resistance to the German occupiers. The author attended the commemoration of the massacre of 360 townspeople, including four family members, on 20th August 1942. At dusk, in the restored Jewish cemetery, the names of all 1770 murdered inhabitants were read out by several people simultaneously, conjuring up the buzz of voices which would have filled the town square in past times, now silenced, as the Jewish community of the town no longer exists. A moving kind of homecoming occurred. Threads of inherited knowledge were reconnected and reinforced with new information. New friendships were forged. In the context of current murderous conflicts, such coming together provides a beacon of hope for the future of humanity. This paper forms part of the larger research project ‘Transnational Identity under Observation’, which explores how frequent border crossers attract the attention of security services in all manner of regimes, whether dictatorships or democracies. It addresses two of the central conference questions: What kind of histories we should seek to pass on, and whether oral history can contribute to historical healing processes. It suggests that reconnecting the threads to weave new histories requires a multi-faceted methodological approach, enhancing family oral history interviews with both archival sources and live personal encounters.