Themes

We propose the following themes for the conference:

Oral history and the community

Today our societies are characterized by extreme individualism, but at the same time new collectivities emerge which reclaim a voice in the public space. In this context, the notion of community acquires new meanings, very different from the old tradition of “community studies”. We are particularly interested in the following questions:
a) how can individual narratives contribute to the formation of a sense of community?
b) in which ways can oral history contribute to the empowerment of (local and globalised) communities to help them face the challenges of the present?
c) what is the contribution of oral narratives in improving mutual understanding within divided or multi-cultural communities?
d) how can we “give back” our research findings to the communities we study?
e) how can local communities create their own narratives on the past, the present and the future?

Oral history and digital media

The diffusion of digital technologies has brought radical changes not only in biographical research, but also in the media, in museums and in the “social media”. We would like to see, first of all, some good examples of how digital media can be used in providing access to oral narratives, for example in museum exhibitions and through the Internet. At the same time, however, we want to problematize this relation through questions such as
a) what are the new (national or global) power relations or forms of resistance that can be created through digital technologies?
b) in which ways can digital technology contribute to an anthropology of the senses? What do we gain and what do we lose by adding image to sound?
c) to what extent do media such as YouTube contribute to a new form of uncritical master narratives?
d) in which ways has the creation of audiovisual archives influenced the notion of the archive, which has served as a metonym for history?

Oral history in periods of crisis

This theme concerns on the one hand periods of crisis of the past (war, civil wars, natural disasters) and on the other the present economic crisis which affects all societies in the world, but especially Europe. Greece finds itself in the eye of the storm and has already changed radically after only two years of austerity measures. These experiences are emblematic for the social and political consequences that may be produced in other countries as well. Therefore, it is a privileged field for research on the new social dynamics created by the crisis. Do we have already some examples of such research with the use of oral narratives and how can we record these experiences?

Oral history in education

International experience has shown that oral history programmes in school education, and especially in history classes, can help students to increase their interest in the learning process, to develop critical historical knowledge and thinking, and improve their competences in the interpretation of historical sources. This may in turn have a positive impact on the pupils’ understanding of broader crucial social issues, such as the marginalization of ethnic groups, of immigrants and other minorities, or of social traumas, such as those faced by deeply divided societies. We are especially interested in the presentation of exemplary oral-history educational programmes developed in different countries, both in the field of primary and secondary education and in undergraduate or postgraduate academic teacher-training courses, and of new relevant theoretical investigations and research. In the second place, we would like to discuss the role of oral history in documenting educational practices of the past and the multiple ways in which they are changing today. In the present context of global restructuring of education according to “New Public Management” models, such research is particularly relevant.

Oral history and memory studies

Since the 1980s oral history and biographical research have contributed significantly to the improvement of our understanding of the processes through which individual and social memory are constructed. Yet, during the last two decades academic interest seems to have shifted to the study of public memory (sites of memory, politics of memory). This field of “memory studies” has often ignored the theoretical insights of oral history and rarely uses oral narratives as a source of knowledge. How can we bridge this gap? Some of the topics which might concern us here are the relation between individual and collective memory, the role of subjectively lived experience in relation with broader social and political processes and the techniques of analysis of oral narratives.