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Oral history interviewing One of the basic techniques or processess of oral history is the interview. | ||||||
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Basic philosophy | |||||
| 1) Most, if not all, people really do want to have their stories listened to. If they haven't done it before it's likely because: | ||||||
 no one has been interested enough to ask it hasn't felt safe enough they have been part of a group norm or code that discouraged disclosure and sharing or if they did try to tell their stories before it wasn't a good experience. | ||||||
2) Most people want their stories and experiences to be valued, respected and acknowledged | ||||||
| by their own immediate community by the wider community. | ||||||
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When will interviewees enjoy the interview experience most? | ||||||
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Listening like a storyteller | |||||
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Storytellers learn to listen like fascinated audiences. What do they look like? | ||||||
| like they are right there living every moment of the story and are totally open to hearing more story. | ||||||
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What happens when the storyteller notices this? | ||||||
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How do you get to be 'open'? |
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| remember what it was like to be a child discovering new things for the first time and practice doing that while listening pretend that you are hearing this story for the very first time and it is unique like the young child enjoying the story, suspend your disbelief. Listen as if what you are hearing is 'completely true' while at the same time keep in relaxed reserve the possibility that it might not be relax, breathe, remember that usually, if someone has agreed to be interviewed, they have weighed up the consequences in their mind, have decided that they trust you and want to tell their story remember that an interviewee who is genuinely telling you a story from their life experience will benefit from the experience and the world will be better for the trouble both you and your storyteller takes sometimes oral histories have significant lasting benefits to whole countries even sometimes to the whole world |
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Narrative Structure | |||||
| Storytellers know all about narrative structure - 'character, setting, problem, resolution'. This is the storytellers 'stock in trade' the 'seven herbs and spices' that makes storytelling and interesting stories possible. We know that so long as something has 'characters, settings, problems and resolutions' it will be identified as a story and people will begin listening to it in the way they normally listen to stories. We know as well that we can make the story interesting by making any one or more of the components interesting. How do we make our characters interesting? What about the settings? | ||||||
| sufficient detail variety of description integrity humanising details (habits, sayings, ways of doing a job) describing people or places from different viewpoints |
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| What makes a problem interesting and a resolution satisfying? | ||||||
| detail the human feelings or emotions surrounding the issue | ||||||
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Keeping narrative structure in mind allows the interviewer to keep an eye on what has and hasn't been covered in an interview.
We can think things like, 'Oh he's gone into the place in amazing detail but so far there's nothing about the characters.' and then ask the appropriate question to get something about the characters. Once this has started we might ask questions like, 'What sort of man was Mr Smith? How did he behave? What did he do? What would he say?' | |||||
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The most important oral history questions of all time? | ||||||
| 'What happened? |
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| 'What happened next?' |
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Daryll Bellingham, Storyteller |