Alignment

Two relationships govern the nature of oral history’s potential social impact: 1) an individual or group’s relationship to the interview and 2) that same individual or group’s relationship to the issue(s) or themes explored in the narrative.1 By intentionally aligning, combining and altering these relationships, practitioners can use the process (and products) of oral history to achieve a variety of movement building and social change goals.2

These lists are neither exhaustive nor mutually exclusive. For example, a narrator might also act as an analyst, editor, listener or performer of her own interview. An organizer on a specific issue campaign might also be directly affected by that issue or injustice (or not). Similarly, nearly any connection or pairing might be made horizontally between the two columns. An opponent of a woman’s right to choose could interview a young woman who elected to have an abortion:

Or a politician considering legislation on health insurance regulations regarding transgender people might hear an excerpt from the oral history of a straight ally of the trans community, interviewed by an organizer from a statewide gender justice group:

Choices related to the alignment3 of these different roles and relationships in oral history practice are inextricably tied to issues of privilege and power. In reference to her own experience of being the only visible woman of color in the Groundswell group, Amita Swadhin wrote as part of her evaluation, “there is a big difference between people of color doing oral history work in our communities vs. white allies doing oral history work in communities of color.” The ethics and efficacy of these insider/outsider dynamics (particularly as they play out in movement-based oral history work) are matters that merit much more substantive discussion than happened in this initial Groundswell gathering.4

Nonetheless, participants did touch on the theme both directly and indirectly at various points throughout the gathering. During one small group conversation, for example, Margaret Fraser, Michael Preston, and Amita discussed how, as interviewers, their identity (actual or perceived) can shape an interview and shared strategies they’ve employed to try to build rapport and trust depending on the unique relationship of their identity to that of the narrator’s.

• Margaret starts with a question about the impact of an interviewer’s age on the interview, then Michael and Amita offer their reflections in response:
  

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• Michael Preston, who himself has interviewed his elders in the Winnemem Wintu tribe, explained how and why his tribe allowed an outsider to videotape their stories:

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• Virginia Raymond argued that there is no hard and fast rule as to who “should” or “shouldn’t” interview a particular narrator:

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These conversations remind us of the creative and highly intersubjective space of the oral history encounter. They also imply that decisions regarding who will act as narrator, interviewer, etc., for a project should be informed by the goals of the project itself. Consider the following examples shared by Groundswell participants from their own projects:

• Through a highly public and “orchestrated” process (but one that began with a more intimate sharing of oral histories), incarcerated women who were survivors of violence shared their stories with a “truth and reconciliation”-like panel of highly influential public officials and policy makers, resulting in a ripple effect of changes in domestic violence and sentencing policies, as well as direct changes benefiting the women in the prison.  Here’s the project coordinator, Alisa Del Tufo:

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• Maggie Schreiner describes the process of one group of activists from an anarchist marching band interviewing the members of similar activist groups as part of a process to resolve ethical questions associated with their particular form of political action:

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• Here Amita Swadhin explains her decision to select as narrators survivors of child sexual abuse with an already developed political analysis and critique of the prison industrial complex. She describes how their decision to share/perform their oral histories at a funders’ convening in front of major players in the more mainstream child welfare world opened the space for others to share their stories and start to shift the dialogue in the funding world:

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In each of these examples, the particular configurations of roles and relationships were purposefully aligned (and combined with other methods and forms from the diverse repertoire available to social movements) in order to effect a process or achieve a specific goal as part of a broader campaign or movement. These goals or processes might include:

• Education, consciousness-raising, and empowerment
• Inspiration, agitation, recruitment and mobilization
• Capacity building, strategy development and evaluation
• Building relationships, communities and solidarity

When directed at power holders, sharing oral history interviews may serve the purpose of putting an issue on their agenda (or at least their radar screen), influencing political decisions, informing their policy-making, or exposing contradictions between their own professed values and actual actions. Aimed at an uninvolved, undecided or uninformed audience, oral history can raise awareness, deepen individuals’ understanding of an issue, persuade, and seek to gain new supporters for a cause. With communities directly affected by injustice, adopting dual roles as interviewers and narrators can build solidarity and empathy across lines of difference, and contribute to individuals’ sense of power and agency. Through a careful reading of oral history interviews of earlier generations of activists, today’s movement leaders and organizers might re-discover and re-create/renovate for contemporary struggles the tactics and strategies of historic social movements.

Additional examples from Groundswell participants suggest the wide variety of ways that oral history is used in movement building—often in multiple ways within a single project that incorporates oral history as one of several actions or strategies:

• Kelly Creedon photographed and interviewed City Life/Vida Urbana activists organizing to save their homes from foreclosure. A multi-media exhibit featuring audiovisual portraits of project narrators and popular theater re-enactments of organizing stories performed by narrators themselves has garnered media attention for the struggle. An organizer from another city used the project’s interviews to inspire and encourage people facing foreclosure in his area to step forward, break the silence/taboo, and share their own stories:
  

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• After two years of interviewing both long time residents and recent arrivals to a San Francisco neighborhood in the process of gentrification (and facilitating a series of meetings with diverse stakeholders), Joey Plaster organized a listening session that brought the two groups together to hear each others’ interviews, thus seeking to build understanding and empathy between two groups that are often pit against one another. The process helped keep some of the older businesses in the neighborhood:
  

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• Winnemem Wintu tribe member, Michael Preston interviewed members of his tribe and made the interviews into a radio documentary in support of their organizing to protect sacred sites:

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In addition to the strategic consideration of the two relationships addressed above, Groundswell participants’ experience showed how intentional and creative adaptations of other aspects of the conventional oral history format can add to the meaning and transformative power of the interview. One example that surfaced several times during the Groundswell gathering was the deliberate use of space and place:

• Daniel Kerr reflects on the political significance of the physical space he chose for conducting and presenting interviews with people experiencing homelessness in Cleveland:
  

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• Alisa Del Tufo describes the intent and effects of conducting oral history interviews in a mini-trailer home parked in the lots of major chain stores:

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Thus, deliberate “alignment” (of roles, relationships, place, etc.) can transform the practice of oral history into a strategic tool for organizers and activists, who can choose when and how to incorporate oral history into their campaigns, programs or actions according to their specific goals and the particular political/historical moment. To do so effectively requires an understanding of how oral history’s very nature presents both limits and possibilities for its use in social movements.