Oral history

Oral history is the collection and study of recorded first-person accounts about the past. It preserves people’s memories and interprets them as evidence shaped by experience and the circumstances of the interview.

Oral history interview: A recorded conversation designed to document a person’s memories and experiences of the past. The interview is the central method for creating oral-history testimony.
Autobiographical memory: Memory for events and experiences from one’s own life. Interview testimony depends on how people remember and organize their lives.
Community archiving: The collecting and stewardship of records by or for the communities they document. Recorded testimony can help communities preserve and interpret their own histories.
Written archive: A collection of documentary records preserved for research or historical use. Written records and recorded memories preserve different kinds of evidence and silences.
Informed consent: Voluntary agreement to participate after receiving relevant information about a study or activity. Interviewees need to understand how their testimony may be recorded, preserved, and shared.
Collective memory: Shared representations of the past sustained by a group or society. Personal accounts often draw on stories and interpretations shared within communities.
Public history: Historical work conducted for and with audiences beyond academic institutions. Oral histories appear in exhibitions, documentaries, archives, and community projects.
Memory studies: An interdisciplinary field examining how individuals and societies remember the past. Oral history is a method within a broader study of memory and its cultural forms.
Audio preservation: The practices used to keep sound recordings accessible and intact over time. Preservation protects recordings from physical decay and obsolete formats.
Narrative: An account that organizes events into a sequence and gives them meaning. Oral-history interviews turn remembered events into stories shaped by present concerns.

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