How can oral historians make the concepts and training tools of anti-racist and anti-oppression organizing useful in oral history work?  On this PSN video chat, we’ll draw on our collective knowledge and experience to imagine together what an anti-oppression framework for doing oral history might include.

There are a maximum of 7 spots available for this PSN Video Chat. To participate, you’ll need to register via EventBrite using the button below.  We ask participants to make a sliding scale donation of $3-$10 to reserve your spot. Your donation will help us continue to organize and offer these chats in the future!

There are a maximum of 8 spots available for this PSN Video Chat. To participate, you’ll need to register via EventBrite using the button below.  We ask participants to make a sliding scale donation of $3-$10 to reserve your spot. Your donation will help us continue to organize and offer these chats in the future!

There are a maximum of 8 spots available for this PSN Video Chat. To participate, you’ll need to register via EventBrite using the button below.  We ask participants to make a sliding scale donation of $3-$10 to reserve your spot. Your donation will help us continue to organize and offer these chats in the future!

Part I of this two-part series focused on getting movement oral histories out of the archives and into the hands of organizers and activists.  There are so many amazing oral histories of social justice activists and rabble rousers and freedom fighters stored in university and community archives all over.

During this PSN chat, we invite you to listen to Desi and Wanjiru, as they map their different work experiences across diverse geographic regions, using oral histories as a successful platform for generating “text” for mural projects, and contemporary dance performances.

The question that frames this PSN chat points to an assumption of many oral history practitioners with social justice goals: that the interviews they conduct will always be in alignment with these goals.

Part II of this two-part PSN series will explore getting movement oral histories into the archives.  What ethical and practical questions should oral historians, narrators, community members, and activists consider when working with or choosing an archive for their interviews?

Listening events can be an effective way to share oral histories and create public dialogue around them. However, they can also be challenging to organize/ How much audio can people sit and listen to?

Part I of this two-part series will focus on getting movement oral histories out of the archives and into the hands of organizers and activists. 

Participatory action research provides a framework for co-research linked to action goals in the real world, using research to try to make changes that are important to the researchers. In participatory action research, collective inquiry is seen as inseparable from social action – understanding the world and changing it are linked.

On April 1, 2013 Amy Starecheski and Alexander Freund co-facilitated a Practitioner Support Network videoconference on oral history and participatory action research (PAR). Sara Kendall, Alisa del Tufo, Zoe West, Mi’Jan Celie Tho-Biaz, and Rebecca Lorins participated in the call. Alexander Freund, Co-Director of the new Oral History Centre at the University of Winnipeg, shared his recent experiences learning about PAR as he undertook a collaborative oral history project with Salvadoran immigrants to Manitoba.

What is the PSN? Activists, organizers, cultural workers and oral historians who engage oral history as a method for movement-building and social change can confront challenging ethical and practical dilemmas in our work. 

The PSN videochat on December 12th focused on the next step after collecting oral histories and how we can effectively and creatively advance social justice and solidarity through sharing stories. 

Oral History is a way to document and project underrepresented voices that are often excluded from the mainstream discourse. Many of these voices speak out in the interest of social justice and address some of the most important challenges we face. 

Our November 2012 PSN Video chat focused on the ways that practitioners using oral history in a movement context balance activism with respecting and honoring the integrity of the narrator and the narrator’s story.  

Oral History is powerful in the way it can help heal individuals and communities by uplifting voices and stories that are often unheard or underrepresented.  Oral History can also be part of a larger strategy for movement building and addressing social justice issues.