Oral History

Oral history research is a method in which personal stories are elicited from people over their life course. It is a specific method of interviewing that requires the researcher and participants to spend a long time together in a process of telling and listening to life stories. Storytelling is a fundamental aspect of human experience; meaning is conveyed through storytelling. This way of passing on knowledge has allowed researchers to develop research techniques that provide an opportunity for people to make their voices heard.

An oral history often emphasizes a particular part of an individual's life—for example, work life or a specific function in some aspect of community life. The emphasis of oral history is on a specific historical juncture, event, period or location which is memorized by individuals. Oral history relies heavily on individual and collective memory and the testimony of participants. This will ensure that a fuller or different understanding of past experiences can be achieved. Importantly, oral histories have permitted the voices of groups who are usually marginalized in historical research to emerge.

Oral history affords researchers a way of inviting their participants to tell their stories of their past. But the individual story is often tied to historical existences and therefore goes beyond the person's experience. Oral history is especially crucial for studying how individuals experience social changes as well as the social and personal problems emerging from these changes. Oral history interviews allow participants to tell their stories on their own terms, so they are able to speak in the way they choose. Thus, oral history interviews function as ideal vehicles for understanding how people perceive their lived experiences and how they connect with others in society.

During an oral history project, researchers spend a lot of time with research participants in order to gain a comprehensive knowledge about their experiences or about specific aspects of their lives. Oral history methods allow researchers to obtain in-depth information about the lives of participants from their own perspective. Researchers learn how participants feel about things, what they consider important in their lives, how they see the relationship between different life experiences, about their difficult times, and the meanings they have constructed as members of society.

Oral history methods are popular among feminist scholars. Based on a feminist framework and a predominantly feminist method, oral history allows researchers to access the invaluable knowledge and rich life experiences of marginalized individuals and groups, which would otherwise remain hidden. In particular, the methods afford a means of reaching marginalized voices. Oral histories allow the participant and the researcher to collaborate and generate knowledge, and this can be an empowering experience for the researched as they are able to gain insight into important moments in their own lives.