WEBVTT 00:00:04.400 --> 00:00:06.435 My name is Dan royals. 00:00:06.435 --> 00:00:08.460 I'm an Assistant Professor in 00:00:08.460 --> 00:00:10.079 the History Department and I 00:00:10.079 --> 00:00:11.895 do a lot of work with oral history. 00:00:11.895 --> 00:00:14.415 I teach oral history in the history department, 00:00:14.415 --> 00:00:17.399 and it's also an important part of my research. 00:00:17.399 --> 00:00:19.875 My research so far has focused 00:00:19.875 --> 00:00:22.080 on African-American aids activism. 00:00:22.080 --> 00:00:24.930 And for that project or for that research, 00:00:24.930 --> 00:00:26.995 oral history is really important. 00:00:26.995 --> 00:00:30.530 I'm way to access histories 00:00:30.530 --> 00:00:32.360 that either haven't made it into 00:00:32.360 --> 00:00:35.075 archives yet or underrepresented in archives. 00:00:35.075 --> 00:00:37.805 Certainly underrepresented in public conversations 00:00:37.805 --> 00:00:39.499 about aids and aids activism. 00:00:39.499 --> 00:00:41.854 So that's a little bit about me. 00:00:41.854 --> 00:00:43.925 I'd like to just hear a little bit, right? 00:00:43.925 --> 00:00:46.669 You could do a quick round of introductions. 00:00:46.669 --> 00:00:50.344 Helped me, you know who I'm talking to, that'd be great. 00:00:50.344 --> 00:00:53.969 Let's start start here. Hello. 00:00:54.220 --> 00:00:57.125 My name is Alejandro Gonzalez. 00:00:57.125 --> 00:00:58.835 I am 22. 00:00:58.835 --> 00:01:01.609 I am a digital arts student. 00:01:01.609 --> 00:01:03.230 I'm currently interning with 00:01:03.230 --> 00:01:05.030 the Jewish Museum of Florida. 00:01:05.030 --> 00:01:06.754 And I'm having a blast. 00:01:06.754 --> 00:01:14.179 It's great. Okay. Hello. 00:01:14.179 --> 00:01:16.234 Hello. I'm Christopher Monte Hall. 00:01:16.234 --> 00:01:17.944 I'm a computer science or philosophy 00:01:17.944 --> 00:01:21.139 double-major and I'm currently interning with Stonewall. 00:01:21.139 --> 00:01:24.150 And I'm also having a blast. 00:01:25.240 --> 00:01:26.509 Right. 00:01:26.509 --> 00:01:29.135 Hi, I'm Sonya. I'm 22. 00:01:29.135 --> 00:01:30.260 I was senior. 00:01:30.260 --> 00:01:35.014 I'm studying international relations and French and I'm 00:01:35.014 --> 00:01:37.339 working at this Gaia also having 00:01:37.339 --> 00:01:41.160 a blast. Yeah, that's it. 00:01:44.110 --> 00:01:46.385 I'm Vincent. 00:01:46.385 --> 00:01:48.709 I'm an art history major and 00:01:48.709 --> 00:01:51.689 I'm at the Museum of graffiti. 00:01:59.800 --> 00:02:02.014 My name is Marin. 00:02:02.014 --> 00:02:03.859 I'm a linguistics major and I'm 00:02:03.859 --> 00:02:07.199 starting at the World Aids museum next week. 00:02:07.660 --> 00:02:10.499 You'll have a blast. 00:02:14.320 --> 00:02:17.149 Yeah, go ahead. I'm Katie. 00:02:17.149 --> 00:02:20.209 I work with everybody because I'm the archivists and WPA 00:02:20.209 --> 00:02:26.150 AHL we've met with I think you guys are in for a treat. 00:02:26.150 --> 00:02:28.369 I saw this presentation a few months ago 00:02:28.369 --> 00:02:31.174 or one similar with Dan. 00:02:31.174 --> 00:02:34.415 And it's very informative and I learned quite a bit. 00:02:34.415 --> 00:02:38.209 Awesome. We had a blast and I had a blast. 00:02:38.209 --> 00:02:40.880 Alright, so let's dive in to 00:02:40.880 --> 00:02:44.579 oral history with a little bit of a definition. 00:02:44.590 --> 00:02:48.169 As is the case with a lot of academic things. 00:02:48.169 --> 00:02:49.550 One thing that we'd like to talk 00:02:49.550 --> 00:02:51.335 a lot about is definitions. 00:02:51.335 --> 00:02:52.669 And so oral history, 00:02:52.669 --> 00:02:55.160 oral historians, as you 00:02:55.160 --> 00:02:57.560 talk about kind of how we define our fields. 00:02:57.560 --> 00:02:58.910 So this is one, I think, 00:02:58.910 --> 00:03:02.434 really good definition of what oral history is. 00:03:02.434 --> 00:03:05.720 And it's recording personal testimony in oral form for 00:03:05.720 --> 00:03:09.020 purposes beyond the interview itself, 00:03:09.020 --> 00:03:10.280 I want to highlight a couple of 00:03:10.280 --> 00:03:12.034 elements of this definition. 00:03:12.034 --> 00:03:13.939 One is that it is recorded 00:03:13.939 --> 00:03:16.339 testimony and that's really important. 00:03:16.339 --> 00:03:19.055 We are creating a document 00:03:19.055 --> 00:03:22.265 of someone's experience by talking to them, 00:03:22.265 --> 00:03:26.959 by eliciting orally from them stories about their life, 00:03:26.959 --> 00:03:29.029 stories about the aspects 00:03:29.029 --> 00:03:31.205 of their life that we're interested in. 00:03:31.205 --> 00:03:36.259 So it is important that testimony comes to us. Oral-b. 00:03:36.259 --> 00:03:38.989 There's a lot of thinking and theorizing 00:03:38.989 --> 00:03:41.524 and writing in the field of oral history 00:03:41.524 --> 00:03:46.954 about what it means to elicit and give and 00:03:46.954 --> 00:03:50.420 record specifically oral testimony and how 00:03:50.420 --> 00:03:54.079 that differs from perhaps other kinds of documentation, 00:03:54.079 --> 00:03:56.194 written testimony, letters, diaries, 00:03:56.194 --> 00:03:58.249 things of that nature. 00:03:58.249 --> 00:04:00.440 Then this is done for 00:04:00.440 --> 00:04:02.329 purposes beyond the interview itself. 00:04:02.329 --> 00:04:04.820 So we do this as maybe a matter of 00:04:04.820 --> 00:04:07.609 our research or archive building. 00:04:07.609 --> 00:04:09.080 And this kinda ties back to the idea 00:04:09.080 --> 00:04:10.850 that this is recorded, right? 00:04:10.850 --> 00:04:14.135 We're creating a document that ideally will live in 00:04:14.135 --> 00:04:17.749 a library or an archive so that not only we can use it, 00:04:17.749 --> 00:04:21.305 but other people down the line can use it as well. 00:04:21.305 --> 00:04:24.290 One thing to keep in mind here is that 00:04:24.290 --> 00:04:25.969 if you if and when you go 00:04:25.969 --> 00:04:27.949 and do an oral history with somebody, 00:04:27.949 --> 00:04:32.870 especially if it's somebody who has not had 00:04:32.870 --> 00:04:35.570 the opportunity to donate their papers or has 00:04:35.570 --> 00:04:39.125 not been reported on in the press, 00:04:39.125 --> 00:04:41.630 you might be creating the only kind of 00:04:41.630 --> 00:04:44.450 lasting document of that person's life. 00:04:44.450 --> 00:04:46.820 It's going to be accessible to people later on. 00:04:46.820 --> 00:04:48.799 So there's a lot of responsibility that goes along with 00:04:48.799 --> 00:04:50.810 doing oral history as well. 00:04:50.810 --> 00:04:52.370 And part of the purpose of this workshop 00:04:52.370 --> 00:04:53.945 is to give you the tools to do it. 00:04:53.945 --> 00:04:57.629 Well, you can take that responsibility. 00:04:57.629 --> 00:05:00.580 So other more fleshing out of 00:05:00.580 --> 00:05:04.915 this definition or just what kind of oral history is. 00:05:04.915 --> 00:05:08.605 Generally we're talking about pretty lengthy interviews. 00:05:08.605 --> 00:05:11.004 At least an hour is 00:05:11.004 --> 00:05:12.895 the guideline that I give to students 00:05:12.895 --> 00:05:14.920 when I teach oral history. 00:05:14.920 --> 00:05:16.389 I've had oral histories that 00:05:16.389 --> 00:05:18.219 go quite a bit longer than an hour. 00:05:18.219 --> 00:05:21.819 I had one that went 5 h at a stretch which 00:05:21.819 --> 00:05:25.479 was a very long time and that kinda kinda of an outlier. 00:05:25.479 --> 00:05:27.609 But generally, when I do interviews, 00:05:27.609 --> 00:05:28.749 they go to two, 00:05:28.749 --> 00:05:31.630 two-and-a-half hours, so quite a bit of time. 00:05:31.630 --> 00:05:34.195 Remember that you're capturing 00:05:34.195 --> 00:05:37.359 a significant chunk of somebody's life in oral testimony. 00:05:37.359 --> 00:05:39.570 So that kinda makes sense. 00:05:39.570 --> 00:05:41.269 When we talk about oral history, 00:05:41.269 --> 00:05:44.945 we generally are talking about life history interviewing. 00:05:44.945 --> 00:05:49.174 So I'm not just asking somebody about 00:05:49.174 --> 00:05:51.980 the specific parts or 00:05:51.980 --> 00:05:54.320 aspects of their life that we're interested in. 00:05:54.320 --> 00:05:56.330 We're trying to get a sense of what 00:05:56.330 --> 00:05:59.239 somebody is like as a whole person, 00:05:59.239 --> 00:06:01.565 including the arc of 00:06:01.565 --> 00:06:04.684 their life and where we're talking about fits into that. 00:06:04.684 --> 00:06:07.940 A lot of my interviewing has been around 00:06:07.940 --> 00:06:11.524 stories of activism, specifically aids activism. 00:06:11.524 --> 00:06:13.310 And usually that's something that people came 00:06:13.310 --> 00:06:16.175 to in their 20s or 30s. 00:06:16.175 --> 00:06:18.830 But I always start my interviews with Tell me about 00:06:18.830 --> 00:06:22.235 your early life because I really want to know. 00:06:22.235 --> 00:06:27.739 It was kind of back in childhood in 00:06:27.739 --> 00:06:30.755 somebody's early community and their family life 00:06:30.755 --> 00:06:34.879 that led them to the path that they got on. 00:06:34.879 --> 00:06:38.225 That brought them to intersect with my research, right? 00:06:38.225 --> 00:06:41.210 So having them do that for me, 00:06:41.210 --> 00:06:43.849 having them give me a sense of where they came 00:06:43.849 --> 00:06:45.320 from and having them often 00:06:45.320 --> 00:06:47.209 explicitly draw those connections for, 00:06:47.209 --> 00:06:48.950 for me and for people down 00:06:48.950 --> 00:06:51.785 the line can be really, really interesting. 00:06:51.785 --> 00:06:55.834 Life history is an important aspect of this as well. 00:06:55.834 --> 00:06:57.770 Generally, when we're talking about oral history, 00:06:57.770 --> 00:07:00.785 we are talking about one-on-one interviewing. 00:07:00.785 --> 00:07:03.065 So I am like an interviewer. 00:07:03.065 --> 00:07:04.609 I'm sitting down with. 00:07:04.609 --> 00:07:06.845 I'm the person that we call the narrator. 00:07:06.845 --> 00:07:09.260 And I'll talk about why in a little bit. 00:07:09.260 --> 00:07:10.835 But I'm sitting with them 00:07:10.835 --> 00:07:13.309 one-on-one, having a conversation, 00:07:13.309 --> 00:07:15.139 fully listening to and paying attention 00:07:15.139 --> 00:07:18.019 to what they have to say. 00:07:18.019 --> 00:07:20.000 The reason that I point this out is 00:07:20.000 --> 00:07:22.535 that sometimes people have 00:07:22.535 --> 00:07:25.024 the idea and it's not a bad idea. 00:07:25.024 --> 00:07:28.445 Interviewing, say, a husband and wife or 00:07:28.445 --> 00:07:30.109 a small group of people who were 00:07:30.109 --> 00:07:32.315 very active in the movement together. 00:07:32.315 --> 00:07:35.104 And certainly you can do that. 00:07:35.104 --> 00:07:37.429 It's something that you want to be 00:07:37.429 --> 00:07:39.994 deliberate about and conscious of. 00:07:39.994 --> 00:07:43.130 Because whenever you bring a group of people, 00:07:43.130 --> 00:07:45.620 whether it's two people or three people or four people, 00:07:45.620 --> 00:07:47.555 into an interview setting, 00:07:47.555 --> 00:07:48.859 you bring in all of 00:07:48.859 --> 00:07:51.589 their interpersonal dynamics that 00:07:51.589 --> 00:07:52.954 can get complicated, right? 00:07:52.954 --> 00:07:55.204 Like if you're interviewing, say, 00:07:55.204 --> 00:07:58.744 a husband and wife or a parent and child, 00:07:58.744 --> 00:08:01.250 or two siblings or two long time best friends. 00:08:01.250 --> 00:08:03.800 You're probably bringing some kind of power dynamics. 00:08:03.800 --> 00:08:07.999 I'm kind of power imbalance into the interview. 00:08:07.999 --> 00:08:10.879 And that is probably going to shape what 00:08:10.879 --> 00:08:13.565 you get in terms of answers to questions. 00:08:13.565 --> 00:08:16.505 You might get less candid answers 00:08:16.505 --> 00:08:19.039 to your questions than you might otherwise. 00:08:19.039 --> 00:08:22.760 So generally we are talking about a one-on-one interview. 00:08:22.760 --> 00:08:26.255 But it is a very flexible research method. 00:08:26.255 --> 00:08:29.434 There's a lot of different ways that you can 00:08:29.434 --> 00:08:31.970 modulate different variables of 00:08:31.970 --> 00:08:36.155 this in order to make it fit your research needs. 00:08:36.155 --> 00:08:38.824 Then finally, again, because this is 00:08:38.824 --> 00:08:40.039 interviewing being done for 00:08:40.039 --> 00:08:42.064 purposes beyond the interview itself, 00:08:42.064 --> 00:08:44.150 we are talking about interviews that are 00:08:44.150 --> 00:08:47.044 archived or otherwise preserved. 00:08:47.044 --> 00:08:49.490 So starting out with a plan that this is going to go 00:08:49.490 --> 00:08:52.594 into the Jewish Museum or the World Aids museum, 00:08:52.594 --> 00:08:54.470 or is going to be kept at Stonewall or 00:08:54.470 --> 00:08:56.719 an FAQ libraries is going to be made 00:08:56.719 --> 00:08:58.070 accessible to researchers in 00:08:58.070 --> 00:09:02.100 the future in one way or another. 00:09:02.530 --> 00:09:06.770 So why do oral history, why is this important? 00:09:06.770 --> 00:09:08.719 Well, one important reason 00:09:08.719 --> 00:09:10.610 is that it lets us capture the experiences of 00:09:10.610 --> 00:09:13.099 people whose voices would otherwise not be 00:09:13.099 --> 00:09:15.710 preserved and the historical record. 00:09:15.710 --> 00:09:17.119 So this is something that we think about 00:09:17.119 --> 00:09:19.039 when we are considering a project. 00:09:19.039 --> 00:09:22.114 When we're picking the people that we want to interview, 00:09:22.114 --> 00:09:25.639 is that archives are pretty good at 00:09:25.639 --> 00:09:27.469 preserving the stories of 00:09:27.469 --> 00:09:29.555 people who have some kind of power. 00:09:29.555 --> 00:09:31.849 Whether that's political power, 00:09:31.849 --> 00:09:35.525 institutional power, social power. 00:09:35.525 --> 00:09:39.079 So people who are white and 00:09:39.079 --> 00:09:42.499 male of European descent tend to be overrepresented. 00:09:42.499 --> 00:09:43.895 In archives. 00:09:43.895 --> 00:09:47.150 People who are not don't align with 00:09:47.150 --> 00:09:48.199 those categories tend to be 00:09:48.199 --> 00:09:50.539 very underrepresented in archives. 00:09:50.539 --> 00:09:53.795 So it's a good way to kind of get a sense 00:09:53.795 --> 00:09:57.275 of people's experience who integers otherwise aren't, 00:09:57.275 --> 00:09:58.730 don't have their experience captured 00:09:58.730 --> 00:10:00.559 by the historical record. 00:10:00.559 --> 00:10:04.520 It's really a good method or 00:10:04.520 --> 00:10:05.975 an important method because 00:10:05.975 --> 00:10:08.345 in doing this kind of interviewing, 00:10:08.345 --> 00:10:09.769 we're giving agency to 00:10:09.769 --> 00:10:13.865 people whose stories are being recorded. 00:10:13.865 --> 00:10:16.130 So by sitting down with somebody, 00:10:16.130 --> 00:10:17.180 by asking them questions, 00:10:17.180 --> 00:10:18.949 by giving them, creating the space for 00:10:18.949 --> 00:10:22.054 them to tell their story and recorded way. 00:10:22.054 --> 00:10:23.705 You're giving somebody agency, 00:10:23.705 --> 00:10:27.124 giving somebody a level of control over 00:10:27.124 --> 00:10:28.909 how their story is going to be shaped in 00:10:28.909 --> 00:10:31.040 preserved for the future. 00:10:31.040 --> 00:10:33.934 There's something really valuable about that. 00:10:33.934 --> 00:10:38.404 It helps us to understand what can often be big kind of 00:10:38.404 --> 00:10:43.490 abstract phenomena or events, processes. 00:10:43.490 --> 00:10:48.424 Things like immigration, gentrification. 00:10:48.424 --> 00:10:50.495 Political change, 00:10:50.495 --> 00:10:52.069 revolution helps us to 00:10:52.069 --> 00:10:53.885 understand what can be very big kind of 00:10:53.885 --> 00:10:56.494 abstract concepts at the level 00:10:56.494 --> 00:10:59.615 of people's individual experience. 00:10:59.615 --> 00:11:02.510 And maybe get a collection of those experiences to 00:11:02.510 --> 00:11:05.600 make a composite portrait of how people, 00:11:05.600 --> 00:11:08.839 how individual people experienced something that 00:11:08.839 --> 00:11:12.950 is in this larger form, harder to represent. 00:11:12.950 --> 00:11:15.709 It helps us to understand the people that we talk 00:11:15.709 --> 00:11:18.185 to as whole people. 00:11:18.185 --> 00:11:19.985 So I know a lot of you are working in 00:11:19.985 --> 00:11:22.190 archives and so you know what you 00:11:22.190 --> 00:11:24.409 may find as you're going 00:11:24.409 --> 00:11:26.990 through a collection of documents, 00:11:26.990 --> 00:11:28.490 wherever they might be, 00:11:28.490 --> 00:11:30.590 you'll find little snippets of 00:11:30.590 --> 00:11:33.230 people like little documentary fragments. 00:11:33.230 --> 00:11:35.120 Somebody who gets mentioned in 00:11:35.120 --> 00:11:37.939 a newspaper article or somebody who writes a letter, 00:11:37.939 --> 00:11:39.649 you get these little glimpses into 00:11:39.649 --> 00:11:42.695 people's lives that are fragmentary. 00:11:42.695 --> 00:11:44.510 They're like little bits. 00:11:44.510 --> 00:11:46.580 Oral history. That's, you get a sense of 00:11:46.580 --> 00:11:48.845 somebody as an entire, 00:11:48.845 --> 00:11:51.845 fully fleshed out, whole human being. 00:11:51.845 --> 00:11:54.500 Something that we don't normally get out of 00:11:54.500 --> 00:11:56.809 archival materials that oral history 00:11:56.809 --> 00:11:58.429 is unique contribution there. 00:11:58.429 --> 00:12:00.215 And then again, this is a flexible, 00:12:00.215 --> 00:12:02.030 interdisciplinary research method. 00:12:02.030 --> 00:12:05.764 So one that you can use in lots of different ways, 00:12:05.764 --> 00:12:09.050 in different settings on all kinds of aspects of 00:12:09.050 --> 00:12:13.054 this that you can modulate to fit your research needs. 00:12:13.054 --> 00:12:18.500 So I'd like to take a couple minutes right now to 00:12:18.500 --> 00:12:21.440 just kinda brainstorm or spitball how you might 00:12:21.440 --> 00:12:24.230 use this in your own research. 00:12:24.230 --> 00:12:25.910 So when you're working 00:12:25.910 --> 00:12:27.709 with your community partners with Stonewall, 00:12:27.709 --> 00:12:29.795 with world is museum with graffiti museum, 00:12:29.795 --> 00:12:32.960 with this guy I like how might this come into 00:12:32.960 --> 00:12:34.909 the work that you either are doing 00:12:34.909 --> 00:12:37.055 there or might think about doing there. 00:12:37.055 --> 00:12:40.730 So this can be kind of theoretical or 00:12:40.730 --> 00:12:45.304 hypothetical on the future as well? Yeah. Go ahead. 00:12:45.304 --> 00:12:47.520 You can just speak into this. 00:12:49.000 --> 00:12:52.400 Yes. So my research at this Gaia 00:12:52.400 --> 00:12:54.830 is really centered around writing 00:12:54.830 --> 00:12:57.499 a land acknowledgment statement and 00:12:57.499 --> 00:13:02.075 giving a voice to like indigenous communities in Florida. 00:13:02.075 --> 00:13:06.020 But what I've found is that the communities that 00:13:06.020 --> 00:13:08.749 were in the land that 00:13:08.749 --> 00:13:12.109 this guy is on were largely moved to Oklahoma. 00:13:12.109 --> 00:13:15.214 So I think it would be interesting to 00:13:15.214 --> 00:13:18.259 maybe reach out to those tribes and conduct 00:13:18.259 --> 00:13:20.389 oral histories like to 00:13:20.389 --> 00:13:24.290 get whatever history like they have from the tribe. 00:13:24.290 --> 00:13:26.149 And then also just like personally how they 00:13:26.149 --> 00:13:28.040 were affected by the move. 00:13:28.040 --> 00:13:29.644 And if they've still feel like 00:13:29.644 --> 00:13:32.360 they have any connection to this land. 00:13:32.360 --> 00:13:40.969 Yeah. Yeah. Well, with Stonewall, 00:13:40.969 --> 00:13:44.585 we have a lot of like underrepresented voices, 00:13:44.585 --> 00:13:46.444 like not only like LGBTQ, 00:13:46.444 --> 00:13:48.709 but also Black, Hispanic. 00:13:48.709 --> 00:13:50.254 And so there's a lot of 00:13:50.254 --> 00:13:52.069 underrepresented history there that 00:13:52.069 --> 00:13:53.599 I feel like oral history. 00:13:53.599 --> 00:13:55.400 And being able to capture and share it would 00:13:55.400 --> 00:13:57.499 be really valuable and to wear it like yeah, 00:13:57.499 --> 00:13:59.209 like the spaces before 00:13:59.209 --> 00:14:01.159 has been dominated by other voices with this, 00:14:01.159 --> 00:14:02.794 that kinda gives me an opportunity. 00:14:02.794 --> 00:14:11.885 Yeah. Okay. Alright, I guess I'm stuck too. 00:14:11.885 --> 00:14:14.960 Well. My experience working with 00:14:14.960 --> 00:14:16.250 the Jewish Museum has mostly 00:14:16.250 --> 00:14:17.989 been what you are referring to. 00:14:17.989 --> 00:14:20.330 Are those like fragments of people that 00:14:20.330 --> 00:14:23.585 you find that itself. 00:14:23.585 --> 00:14:25.865 These little pieces that don't tell you 00:14:25.865 --> 00:14:29.255 the whole story and they're often hard to place 00:14:29.255 --> 00:14:32.180 historically and regarding their contexts 00:14:32.180 --> 00:14:33.320 than as far as I am 00:14:33.320 --> 00:14:37.669 able to understand based on what I've been exposed to, 00:14:37.669 --> 00:14:39.769 oral histories are a great way to like, 00:14:39.769 --> 00:14:42.290 get a sense of contexts than 00:14:42.290 --> 00:14:45.019 what people were going through and how they're taking it, 00:14:45.019 --> 00:14:47.974 and how all these macro costumes 00:14:47.974 --> 00:14:50.779 are affecting them and how they fit within it. 00:14:50.779 --> 00:14:52.760 Which is something that like 00:14:52.760 --> 00:14:56.974 newspaper clippings and photographs do not give you. 00:14:56.974 --> 00:15:02.300 So it helps things make it makes them less abstract? 00:15:02.300 --> 00:15:11.759 Yeah, certainly. Really. No. 00:15:13.240 --> 00:15:18.830 Thank you. I feel I could use it. 00:15:18.830 --> 00:15:21.679 And like you said, an unbiased way, 00:15:21.679 --> 00:15:24.740 not only personal because I guess 00:15:24.740 --> 00:15:28.925 the stigma of graffiti is usually gang-related. 00:15:28.925 --> 00:15:32.120 But I could explore, I could try to 00:15:32.120 --> 00:15:35.569 expose the flaws in posing it as that. 00:15:35.569 --> 00:15:38.390 Also at the same time, unbiased, 00:15:38.390 --> 00:15:41.630 showing the ugly side of, 00:15:41.630 --> 00:15:43.820 I guess the good and the bad. 00:15:43.820 --> 00:15:46.580 To give an unbiased. 00:15:46.580 --> 00:15:51.890 A conclusion. And then I guess since it's in an archive, 00:15:51.890 --> 00:15:54.919 wouldn't the curator choose to? 00:15:54.919 --> 00:15:58.730 Depending on what exhibition or what the concept 00:15:58.730 --> 00:16:02.044 of a show would be to choose what side they want to use. 00:16:02.044 --> 00:16:06.815 Because at the museum there is like a police section. 00:16:06.815 --> 00:16:08.869 But there's also like 00:16:08.869 --> 00:16:12.065 a collection of art that is based off of goofy, 00:16:12.065 --> 00:16:14.135 you know, Keith Herring basket. 00:16:14.135 --> 00:16:14.584 Yeah. 00:16:14.584 --> 00:16:18.530 So I guess unbiased way 00:16:18.530 --> 00:16:19.970 I would use it to teach people and 00:16:19.970 --> 00:16:22.325 they can draw their own opinion from it. 00:16:22.325 --> 00:16:25.039 What are the things that we tried to do with 00:16:25.039 --> 00:16:28.925 oral history is to give contexts, 00:16:28.925 --> 00:16:31.204 As you said, or has usually good for that. 00:16:31.204 --> 00:16:32.464 But also to give people like, 00:16:32.464 --> 00:16:36.169 more kind of complicated, 00:16:36.169 --> 00:16:38.930 nuanced understandings of what we're talking about. 00:16:38.930 --> 00:16:41.300 So people might think about graffiti in 00:16:41.300 --> 00:16:43.850 this like very kind of like binary way. 00:16:43.850 --> 00:16:44.960 Like it's like it's, 00:16:44.960 --> 00:16:47.509 it's high art or it's crime. 00:16:47.509 --> 00:16:53.075 And what you may find in interviewing people, 00:16:53.075 --> 00:16:55.399 especially people who are like graffiti, 00:16:55.399 --> 00:16:59.075 graffiti artists, is that they might bring 00:16:59.075 --> 00:17:05.690 a more nuanced lens onto the work that they do. 00:17:05.690 --> 00:17:07.759 And so the value of oral history 00:17:07.759 --> 00:17:10.834 than is like helping people to kind of 00:17:10.834 --> 00:17:15.560 see this visual form in any kind 00:17:15.560 --> 00:17:20.690 of more complicated, complex way. 00:17:20.690 --> 00:17:22.475 I really liked what you said about 00:17:22.475 --> 00:17:25.729 the curator can use this in different ways, 00:17:25.729 --> 00:17:28.759 which is absolutely true and you can think 00:17:28.759 --> 00:17:32.464 about the interview that you do. 00:17:32.464 --> 00:17:33.664 And so you end up with 00:17:33.664 --> 00:17:36.980 a recording and probably a transcript. 00:17:36.980 --> 00:17:38.719 You can do a lot of stuff 00:17:38.719 --> 00:17:40.039 down the line with that recording. 00:17:40.039 --> 00:17:41.719 You can enter the institution can, 00:17:41.719 --> 00:17:43.009 in terms of clipping, 00:17:43.009 --> 00:17:44.810 step out for documentaries, 00:17:44.810 --> 00:17:48.184 or for podcasts or for exhibitions. 00:17:48.184 --> 00:17:51.289 There's all kinds of like with the interview 00:17:51.289 --> 00:17:54.590 can live in different formats later on. 00:17:54.590 --> 00:17:56.030 And what we're doing and doing 00:17:56.030 --> 00:17:59.509 the recording is allowing for that to happen. 00:17:59.509 --> 00:18:00.949 Like we're making, making 00:18:00.949 --> 00:18:04.369 that future work possible by interviewing people. 00:18:04.369 --> 00:18:08.599 Now, Let's see other things that you 00:18:08.599 --> 00:18:10.730 might think about and particularly 00:18:10.730 --> 00:18:13.144 thought about this with the land acknowledgment is like, 00:18:13.144 --> 00:18:15.455 you can think about this in terms 00:18:15.455 --> 00:18:17.780 of doing your own interviews. 00:18:17.780 --> 00:18:19.325 You can also think about 00:18:19.325 --> 00:18:21.725 looking for wet interviews already exists, 00:18:21.725 --> 00:18:23.360 like what work have people already 00:18:23.360 --> 00:18:25.970 done that you might be able to take and 00:18:25.970 --> 00:18:28.489 then build on into 00:18:28.489 --> 00:18:31.835 Orlando acknowledgement or an exhibit or something else. 00:18:31.835 --> 00:18:34.609 Also, think about how you can find what 00:18:34.609 --> 00:18:38.554 already exists in the world in terms of this work. 00:18:38.554 --> 00:18:45.229 And I feel like 00:18:45.229 --> 00:18:46.309 there was one other thing that I 00:18:46.309 --> 00:18:47.839 wanted to wanted to pull out 00:18:47.839 --> 00:18:53.030 but maybe not o11 significant area 00:18:53.030 --> 00:18:54.770 where there's been a lot of oral history work 00:18:54.770 --> 00:18:57.440 done is in Holocaust Remembrance. 00:18:57.440 --> 00:18:59.749 Something that's very much of interest 00:18:59.749 --> 00:19:02.510 to the Jewish Museum. 00:19:02.510 --> 00:19:05.609 To introduce yourself real quick. 00:19:08.890 --> 00:19:11.340 Where? 00:19:11.800 --> 00:19:15.544 Where's that word? Rooming house. Okay. 00:19:15.544 --> 00:19:16.459 Okay. 00:19:16.459 --> 00:19:17.734 Okay. 00:19:17.734 --> 00:19:21.050 I'm generals. I'm the leading this workshop. 00:19:21.050 --> 00:19:23.614 So we were just talking about 00:19:23.614 --> 00:19:26.360 a little bit about what oral history is, 00:19:26.360 --> 00:19:27.590 kinda the components of it. 00:19:27.590 --> 00:19:30.260 And then we're brainstorming how this 00:19:30.260 --> 00:19:31.579 might come into the work that you're 00:19:31.579 --> 00:19:34.309 doing for the Miami Studies Program. 00:19:34.309 --> 00:19:38.344 So we'll get into a little bit of kind of 00:19:38.344 --> 00:19:42.725 technical aspects of what this looks like in practice. 00:19:42.725 --> 00:19:45.380 And so here I think it's really valuable to think about 00:19:45.380 --> 00:19:49.865 interviews being part of a kind of like life-cycle. 00:19:49.865 --> 00:19:51.394 If you wanted to do the lake, 00:19:51.394 --> 00:19:53.240 I don't know, like elementary school biology, 00:19:53.240 --> 00:19:57.484 like the butterfly is an egg and then it's a chrysalis. 00:19:57.484 --> 00:19:59.794 Like, you know, just think about that kind of like 00:19:59.794 --> 00:20:02.195 Wheel of nature here. 00:20:02.195 --> 00:20:06.560 But with interviews. Before you do anything, 00:20:06.560 --> 00:20:08.299 you want to think about kind of what's 00:20:08.299 --> 00:20:10.294 the framing of your project? 00:20:10.294 --> 00:20:11.959 What are your goals? 00:20:11.959 --> 00:20:13.550 What do you want to find out? 00:20:13.550 --> 00:20:15.050 Where does your working questions? 00:20:15.050 --> 00:20:17.674 Do you have working ideas 00:20:17.674 --> 00:20:20.389 about what it is that you're going to find. 00:20:20.389 --> 00:20:23.030 And then based on that initial framing, 00:20:23.030 --> 00:20:24.680 you're going to think about who is 00:20:24.680 --> 00:20:26.630 it that I want to interview. 00:20:26.630 --> 00:20:29.285 We're going to start reaching out to those people. 00:20:29.285 --> 00:20:32.104 This can come from the archive. 00:20:32.104 --> 00:20:35.929 You might be working in a collection and say, 00:20:35.929 --> 00:20:38.299 I don't know, I'm working in 00:20:38.299 --> 00:20:41.719 the act up Fort Lauderdale collection. 00:20:41.719 --> 00:20:44.645 And I know that these people get mentioned. 00:20:44.645 --> 00:20:46.100 I wanted to see if these people are still 00:20:46.100 --> 00:20:48.334 living and see if I can get in touch with them. 00:20:48.334 --> 00:20:49.774 That might be with you. 00:20:49.774 --> 00:20:52.805 Identify an initial list of narrators. 00:20:52.805 --> 00:20:53.959 I said I was going to explain why I 00:20:53.959 --> 00:20:55.774 say narrators and I'll do that now. 00:20:55.774 --> 00:20:59.900 This goes back to the question of agency and control. 00:20:59.900 --> 00:21:03.155 Because we used the term narrators to, 00:21:03.155 --> 00:21:05.135 instead of something like interviewee, 00:21:05.135 --> 00:21:06.830 which is kind of like you have an action being 00:21:06.830 --> 00:21:08.869 done on you. I'm being interviewed. 00:21:08.869 --> 00:21:10.310 Instead we say narrators because 00:21:10.310 --> 00:21:11.645 like I am doing an action, 00:21:11.645 --> 00:21:14.270 I'm narrating my life experience. 00:21:14.270 --> 00:21:15.964 So it's one of the ways that we represent 00:21:15.964 --> 00:21:18.019 that sense of agency that we're trying 00:21:18.019 --> 00:21:19.849 to always devolve to the 00:21:19.849 --> 00:21:22.579 narrator's that we are interviewing. 00:21:22.579 --> 00:21:25.474 So you might generate 00:21:25.474 --> 00:21:26.660 an initial list from 00:21:26.660 --> 00:21:28.070 your archival research and 00:21:28.070 --> 00:21:29.885 then those people when you contact them, 00:21:29.885 --> 00:21:33.229 might tell you other people to contact as well. 00:21:33.229 --> 00:21:35.420 So you can use the kind of snowball sampling, 00:21:35.420 --> 00:21:37.189 what we call snowball sampling method, 00:21:37.189 --> 00:21:40.355 to start from an initial list 00:21:40.355 --> 00:21:43.415 and then build on that to find more people to interview. 00:21:43.415 --> 00:21:46.789 You're going to do a pre-interview where 00:21:46.789 --> 00:21:50.780 you meet with the narrator for maybe 15, 00:21:50.780 --> 00:21:52.550 20 min and just explain 00:21:52.550 --> 00:21:54.634 what the process is going to look like. 00:21:54.634 --> 00:21:57.830 That's a good opportunity for you to answer questions, 00:21:57.830 --> 00:22:00.725 but also to start to build a rapport with them, 00:22:00.725 --> 00:22:03.695 to build a kind of connection of familiarity, 00:22:03.695 --> 00:22:06.109 a relationship that's going to pay off when you 00:22:06.109 --> 00:22:08.810 actually sit down to interview them about their life. 00:22:08.810 --> 00:22:10.489 If they feel comfortable with you, 00:22:10.489 --> 00:22:11.990 the interview is gonna be much more 00:22:11.990 --> 00:22:13.219 productive than if you're 00:22:13.219 --> 00:22:15.590 talking to them for the first time. 00:22:15.590 --> 00:22:17.525 This is a good opportunity 00:22:17.525 --> 00:22:20.194 to explain what the process is going to look like. 00:22:20.194 --> 00:22:23.600 Explain what kind of rates they have, 00:22:23.600 --> 00:22:25.280 what kind of control they have over 00:22:25.280 --> 00:22:28.144 the interview. I'll talk about in a minute. 00:22:28.144 --> 00:22:29.555 We give them quite a bit of control 00:22:29.555 --> 00:22:31.370 over the interview process. 00:22:31.370 --> 00:22:34.444 Then you sit down and you do the recorded interview. 00:22:34.444 --> 00:22:38.314 Again, this should be an hour or more. 00:22:38.314 --> 00:22:40.475 So you're sitting down, 00:22:40.475 --> 00:22:41.855 you have your questions, 00:22:41.855 --> 00:22:43.474 and you are having 00:22:43.474 --> 00:22:47.465 a conversation with this person about their life, 00:22:47.465 --> 00:22:50.059 then you're going to transcribe the interview. 00:22:50.059 --> 00:22:52.475 Either do it yourself or have somebody else do it. 00:22:52.475 --> 00:22:55.160 Probably do it yourself because it's kind of expensive. 00:22:55.160 --> 00:22:57.214 We're not to the point where 00:22:57.214 --> 00:23:00.034 computers can do this really well for us, 00:23:00.034 --> 00:23:01.610 at least in a way that 00:23:01.610 --> 00:23:04.879 is kinda commercially, widely available. 00:23:04.879 --> 00:23:06.769 But transcribing your interview, 00:23:06.769 --> 00:23:10.805 which means like typing out basically a script of it, 00:23:10.805 --> 00:23:12.499 is a good way 00:23:12.499 --> 00:23:15.995 to get to know your interview material really well. 00:23:15.995 --> 00:23:17.329 Like you have a pretty, 00:23:17.329 --> 00:23:18.710 pretty intimate knowledge of it. 00:23:18.710 --> 00:23:21.559 Once you've listened to it and written it all out. 00:23:21.559 --> 00:23:24.199 Then we take that transcript, that, 00:23:24.199 --> 00:23:25.595 that script to the interview 00:23:25.595 --> 00:23:27.334 and return it to the narrator. 00:23:27.334 --> 00:23:31.504 The reason that we do this is because again, 00:23:31.504 --> 00:23:33.950 we wanted to evolve as much control, 00:23:33.950 --> 00:23:36.169 as much power in the interview process to 00:23:36.169 --> 00:23:39.559 the narrator as we can at every stage that we can. 00:23:39.559 --> 00:23:41.780 And this goes back to the idea of, that. 00:23:41.780 --> 00:23:43.789 This is a method that gives a lot of agency to 00:23:43.789 --> 00:23:47.165 the people whose stories we're capturing. 00:23:47.165 --> 00:23:51.064 You, especially being student interns 00:23:51.064 --> 00:23:52.970 on a bigger project might not 00:23:52.970 --> 00:23:55.594 feel like you have a lot of kind of 00:23:55.594 --> 00:23:58.624 power or like seniority here. 00:23:58.624 --> 00:24:03.979 But by virtue of being agents of the university, 00:24:03.979 --> 00:24:07.519 agents of the wolf's was within 00:24:07.519 --> 00:24:09.979 public humanities lab with books and were 00:24:09.979 --> 00:24:13.129 sown in Estonian Public Humanities Lab. 00:24:13.129 --> 00:24:17.389 You have a lot of institutional power behind you. 00:24:17.389 --> 00:24:19.490 And so one of the things that we wanna do as 00:24:19.490 --> 00:24:22.249 oral historians is take that power 00:24:22.249 --> 00:24:25.220 and devolve it to transfer it to 00:24:25.220 --> 00:24:28.564 the people whose stories we're working to capture it. 00:24:28.564 --> 00:24:32.014 Because often this means working with people who 00:24:32.014 --> 00:24:34.310 are historically and socially 00:24:34.310 --> 00:24:36.755 marginalized in one or more ways. 00:24:36.755 --> 00:24:38.300 And so it's important from 00:24:38.300 --> 00:24:40.219 an ethical perspective for 00:24:40.219 --> 00:24:41.554 us to do this as much as we can. 00:24:41.554 --> 00:24:43.414 So we take that transcript 00:24:43.414 --> 00:24:45.349 and we give it back to the narrator and say, 00:24:45.349 --> 00:24:46.730 you read through this, 00:24:46.730 --> 00:24:48.139 you take out anything that 00:24:48.139 --> 00:24:49.580 you don't want to be a matter of 00:24:49.580 --> 00:24:53.299 public record for any reason, 00:24:53.299 --> 00:24:56.660 personal, professional, whatever. 00:24:56.660 --> 00:24:59.359 Because I talked about my sister-in-law 00:24:59.359 --> 00:25:02.299 and I want her to be able to see what I said about her. 00:25:02.299 --> 00:25:03.485 Whatever. 00:25:03.485 --> 00:25:05.539 We give them the opportunity 00:25:05.539 --> 00:25:07.219 and the control over the transcript. 00:25:07.219 --> 00:25:09.964 In that way. Very often people will say, 00:25:09.964 --> 00:25:12.079 Yeah, this looks good, Perfect, fine. 00:25:12.079 --> 00:25:14.585 Put it in the archive, and that's great. 00:25:14.585 --> 00:25:18.560 But it is important that we have that layer of 00:25:18.560 --> 00:25:20.239 protection for the narrator's 00:25:20.239 --> 00:25:23.644 to determine how they want to be protected. 00:25:23.644 --> 00:25:27.605 So after they've seen it, after they read it, 00:25:27.605 --> 00:25:31.399 they will edit or redact or seal any portion 00:25:31.399 --> 00:25:34.850 of it that they want to and then sign off on it. 00:25:34.850 --> 00:25:37.070 And then at that point, 00:25:37.070 --> 00:25:39.484 the transcript and whatever form that it is, 00:25:39.484 --> 00:25:41.195 we'll go into the archive 00:25:41.195 --> 00:25:43.264 along with the recording of the interview 00:25:43.264 --> 00:25:45.259 and be available be made available to 00:25:45.259 --> 00:25:47.540 the public under whatever terms the narrator has sent. 00:25:47.540 --> 00:25:49.640 Again, in my experience, 00:25:49.640 --> 00:25:51.995 generally narrators are like They look at it and say, 00:25:51.995 --> 00:25:55.039 cool, fine, make it available, whatever. 00:25:55.039 --> 00:25:56.794 But it is important that we give them 00:25:56.794 --> 00:25:59.089 the opportunity to exercise 00:25:59.089 --> 00:26:01.294 control over what is their life story, right? 00:26:01.294 --> 00:26:03.769 I mean, that's the important thing to keep in mind here, 00:26:03.769 --> 00:26:06.575 is that by virtue of doing oral history, 00:26:06.575 --> 00:26:11.944 you're becoming the custodian or the steward, 00:26:11.944 --> 00:26:13.565 or the channel by which 00:26:13.565 --> 00:26:16.385 somebody story gets recorded and made available. 00:26:16.385 --> 00:26:20.810 And so it's always good to keep that in mind so that you 00:26:20.810 --> 00:26:23.209 can kinda keep the ethical imperatives 00:26:23.209 --> 00:26:26.254 of that front of mind as well. 00:26:26.254 --> 00:26:29.224 Hi, I'm Dan, dan Rawls. 00:26:29.224 --> 00:26:30.214 I'm leaving this workshop. 00:26:30.214 --> 00:26:32.059 Could you introduce yourself real quick? 00:26:32.059 --> 00:26:35.089 Hi, my name is Dominic St. Victor. 00:26:35.089 --> 00:26:37.204 I'm in the master's program 00:26:37.204 --> 00:26:38.974 doing the public history check. 00:26:38.974 --> 00:26:40.430 Great. 00:26:40.430 --> 00:26:46.459 Welcome. So some of 00:26:46.459 --> 00:26:50.014 the ways that we protect narrators in this way, 00:26:50.014 --> 00:26:53.269 we use forums before 00:26:53.269 --> 00:26:56.464 and after the interview to do a couple of things. 00:26:56.464 --> 00:26:59.629 One before the interview is to communicate to 00:26:59.629 --> 00:27:01.609 the narrator what their rights 00:27:01.609 --> 00:27:03.694 are in the context of the interview. 00:27:03.694 --> 00:27:05.329 Remember, you are representing 00:27:05.329 --> 00:27:07.145 a powerful institution when you do, 00:27:07.145 --> 00:27:11.239 when you do interviewing as an agent of FAQ. 00:27:11.239 --> 00:27:13.159 And so we want to make sure 00:27:13.159 --> 00:27:15.740 that narrator's understand that they 00:27:15.740 --> 00:27:18.860 can do things like refused to answer questions, 00:27:18.860 --> 00:27:21.709 stop the interview at any time. 00:27:21.709 --> 00:27:24.590 One thing that I always write into my forms is like if 00:27:24.590 --> 00:27:27.155 we get to the end of the interview and you decide, 00:27:27.155 --> 00:27:29.269 I don't want any of that to be public record. 00:27:29.269 --> 00:27:32.315 I will destroy the interview. Destroy the record. 00:27:32.315 --> 00:27:34.189 It will never be transcribed. That's never 00:27:34.189 --> 00:27:37.190 happened in all the interviewing that I've done. 00:27:37.190 --> 00:27:39.770 It's important to have that as a kind of 00:27:39.770 --> 00:27:42.350 like outlet or an option, 00:27:42.350 --> 00:27:47.525 a fail-safe for narrators to feel comfortable, 00:27:47.525 --> 00:27:50.420 just to feel comfortable to have that in 00:27:50.420 --> 00:27:52.069 order to fully protect 00:27:52.069 --> 00:27:53.959 them or protect them as much as possible. 00:27:53.959 --> 00:27:57.439 So we use the consent form before the interview. 00:27:57.439 --> 00:27:59.659 And again, that's something that you can go over during 00:27:59.659 --> 00:28:01.579 the pre-interview and answer 00:28:01.579 --> 00:28:02.855 any questions that they have. 00:28:02.855 --> 00:28:04.835 And then we use a deed of gift 00:28:04.835 --> 00:28:07.580 after the interview that clarifies, 00:28:07.580 --> 00:28:10.520 Hey, these are your your rights to the material. 00:28:10.520 --> 00:28:11.869 These are my rights to the material. 00:28:11.869 --> 00:28:13.879 And basically, if you retain 00:28:13.879 --> 00:28:16.594 a non-exclusive copyright to 00:28:16.594 --> 00:28:18.274 the interview, that makes sense. 00:28:18.274 --> 00:28:19.879 It's your life story. 00:28:19.879 --> 00:28:22.085 It wouldn't make sense for me to like, 00:28:22.085 --> 00:28:25.654 take that away from you as the interviewer, 00:28:25.654 --> 00:28:27.169 have a right to it as well. 00:28:27.169 --> 00:28:29.929 And so that's what allows you to then take a body of 00:28:29.929 --> 00:28:33.319 interviews and transfer them to a library or archive. 00:28:33.319 --> 00:28:35.134 It's important for the library or archive 00:28:35.134 --> 00:28:37.580 often to have that documentations 00:28:37.580 --> 00:28:39.289 that they feel comfortable making it 00:28:39.289 --> 00:28:42.139 accessible to the public. 00:28:42.139 --> 00:28:45.664 So again, what we're trying to do with these forums, 00:28:45.664 --> 00:28:48.170 with the way that we approach the interview setting with 00:28:48.170 --> 00:28:51.289 every stage of this process is to 00:28:51.289 --> 00:28:54.470 take the power that we have as interviewers and 00:28:54.470 --> 00:28:56.029 devolve it to the people 00:28:56.029 --> 00:28:58.279 that we're interviewing, our narrators. 00:28:58.279 --> 00:29:00.469 It's really important to understand, 00:29:00.469 --> 00:29:04.069 however, what you can promise and what you cannot. 00:29:04.069 --> 00:29:06.964 You cannot promise somebody for 00:29:06.964 --> 00:29:11.285 anonymity and you cannot promise them legal protection. 00:29:11.285 --> 00:29:14.450 So there's one very famous case in 00:29:14.450 --> 00:29:18.275 which this came to the form. 00:29:18.275 --> 00:29:20.059 That was a case that involved 00:29:20.059 --> 00:29:22.579 Boston College where they had somebody who is 00:29:22.579 --> 00:29:25.430 doing interviews with people who had been 00:29:25.430 --> 00:29:29.150 active in at the time called the troubles in 00:29:29.150 --> 00:29:31.699 Northern Ireland is a period of 00:29:31.699 --> 00:29:36.154 very intense bloody political conflicts 00:29:36.154 --> 00:29:40.985 between Irish nationalists and English royalists. 00:29:40.985 --> 00:29:43.955 And so this was like in the '70s and '80s. 00:29:43.955 --> 00:29:47.779 This is a period in which people were assassinated. 00:29:47.779 --> 00:29:50.480 Had their homes or cars blown up, 00:29:50.480 --> 00:29:55.009 like where people were murdered for political reasons. 00:29:55.009 --> 00:29:59.284 And so after the Good Friday accords in the '90s, 00:29:59.284 --> 00:30:01.174 the end of this violence, 00:30:01.174 --> 00:30:04.190 there was an interest in going in and talking to people 00:30:04.190 --> 00:30:07.654 who had been active perpetrators of that. 00:30:07.654 --> 00:30:10.039 We can probably see why that would 00:30:10.039 --> 00:30:12.019 be interesting to people. 00:30:12.019 --> 00:30:13.070 Why we would want buy, 00:30:13.070 --> 00:30:14.569 We just as people who want to know 00:30:14.569 --> 00:30:16.580 more would want to do that. 00:30:16.580 --> 00:30:18.559 The problem is that the person who is 00:30:18.559 --> 00:30:20.479 doing the interviewing told the people 00:30:20.479 --> 00:30:22.220 that they were interviewing told 00:30:22.220 --> 00:30:25.674 their narrators, hey, we'll, she'll, 00:30:25.674 --> 00:30:30.259 this material from, from any kind of public view, 00:30:30.259 --> 00:30:34.490 really kind of access until you die so that you 00:30:34.490 --> 00:30:35.990 won't be exposed to 00:30:35.990 --> 00:30:38.929 legal liability for the things that you're telling us. 00:30:38.929 --> 00:30:40.669 Well, they had no authority to actually 00:30:40.669 --> 00:30:43.535 promise that that material 00:30:43.535 --> 00:30:48.695 was subpoenaed successfully by the US government. 00:30:48.695 --> 00:30:50.149 And baby, it was 00:30:50.149 --> 00:30:51.680 the US government specifically 00:30:51.680 --> 00:30:53.390 didn't successfully by some government. 00:30:53.390 --> 00:30:55.040 It might've been the British government. 00:30:55.040 --> 00:30:58.969 But the point is that they promised more than they could 00:30:58.969 --> 00:31:03.185 deliver and put their narrators at risk. 00:31:03.185 --> 00:31:04.669 As a result, obviously, 00:31:04.669 --> 00:31:06.245 we don't want to do this. 00:31:06.245 --> 00:31:08.464 So it's just important 00:31:08.464 --> 00:31:10.954 to understand that you can tell it. 00:31:10.954 --> 00:31:13.595 You can promise somebody confidentiality 00:31:13.595 --> 00:31:14.974 not to use their real name. 00:31:14.974 --> 00:31:16.849 I'll talk a little bit more about that in the next slide. 00:31:16.849 --> 00:31:19.370 But you cannot promise somebody for anonymity. 00:31:19.370 --> 00:31:22.804 They are giving you, by nature of doing the interview, 00:31:22.804 --> 00:31:25.084 personally identifiable information, 00:31:25.084 --> 00:31:27.079 whether or not they use their name. 00:31:27.079 --> 00:31:29.194 And so again, thinking 00:31:29.194 --> 00:31:31.505 ethically about how we do this kind of work, 00:31:31.505 --> 00:31:35.210 you want to be attuned to when somebody is telling you 00:31:35.210 --> 00:31:39.139 information that might put them at legal risk. 00:31:39.139 --> 00:31:40.339 So just keep that in mind. 00:31:40.339 --> 00:31:42.680 Again, not something that I expect it's going to come 00:31:42.680 --> 00:31:45.680 up a lot or even. 00:31:45.680 --> 00:31:48.619 If any, of your work. But it is important to 00:31:48.619 --> 00:31:51.875 understand what you can promise and what you cannot. 00:31:51.875 --> 00:31:53.944 So again, some things to know. 00:31:53.944 --> 00:31:56.359 Consent can be given on camera. 00:31:56.359 --> 00:31:58.760 So I talked the last slide 00:31:58.760 --> 00:32:01.099 about using a consent form in order to 00:32:01.099 --> 00:32:03.709 communicate somebody's rights and to have 00:32:03.709 --> 00:32:07.069 them acknowledged that they understand those. 00:32:07.069 --> 00:32:10.115 You can also do this on camera. 00:32:10.115 --> 00:32:12.439 You're not always going to be interviewing 00:32:12.439 --> 00:32:15.229 people who have a high level of 00:32:15.229 --> 00:32:17.765 literacy or have a high enough level of literacy 00:32:17.765 --> 00:32:22.295 to complete a consent form, and that's fine. 00:32:22.295 --> 00:32:25.369 One of the strengths of oral history is that 00:32:25.369 --> 00:32:27.845 we can capture a wider range of voices. 00:32:27.845 --> 00:32:29.509 Printed archive can. 00:32:29.509 --> 00:32:32.510 So it is fine for somebody to give consent on camera, 00:32:32.510 --> 00:32:34.340 for you to read through the consent form and 00:32:34.340 --> 00:32:37.010 then them to say, I consent. 00:32:37.010 --> 00:32:39.920 Narrators can choose a pseudonym 00:32:39.920 --> 00:32:41.464 or a false name for themselves. 00:32:41.464 --> 00:32:45.004 This is fine. If you're doing this. 00:32:45.004 --> 00:32:45.949 This is an instance, 00:32:45.949 --> 00:32:47.419 another instance in which you might want to 00:32:47.419 --> 00:32:51.965 use verbal consent on camera rather than a printed form. 00:32:51.965 --> 00:32:53.735 So you just want to ask them, you know, 00:32:53.735 --> 00:32:55.054 what do you want your pseudonym to be? 00:32:55.054 --> 00:32:56.720 And I'll use that suited them for you. 00:32:56.720 --> 00:33:00.440 Um, but again, anonymity 00:33:00.440 --> 00:33:03.875 is not something that you can promise because by virtue, 00:33:03.875 --> 00:33:05.300 by the very nature of 00:33:05.300 --> 00:33:07.775 the interviewing, they are giving you, 00:33:07.775 --> 00:33:10.445 identify personally identifiable information 00:33:10.445 --> 00:33:12.514 that can be used to identify them later on. 00:33:12.514 --> 00:33:15.139 So again, we can promise confidentiality. 00:33:15.139 --> 00:33:17.705 We cannot promise for anonymity. 00:33:17.705 --> 00:33:19.760 Anonymity meaning that nobody 00:33:19.760 --> 00:33:21.409 will be able to find out who you are. 00:33:21.409 --> 00:33:25.714 They probably will, at least to some degree. 00:33:25.714 --> 00:33:28.489 And so the D to get from that 00:33:28.489 --> 00:33:30.919 I mentioned in the last slide or two slides ago, 00:33:30.919 --> 00:33:33.409 is one where the narrator can place 00:33:33.409 --> 00:33:36.424 any kind of restrictions on access that they want. 00:33:36.424 --> 00:33:41.059 Say, they're like, I don't want anybody to see this for 00:33:41.059 --> 00:33:42.980 five years or ten years or 00:33:42.980 --> 00:33:45.560 until I retire or until after I die, 00:33:45.560 --> 00:33:48.604 they can put that stipulation on the deed of gift form. 00:33:48.604 --> 00:33:50.930 And when it gets transferred to a library or archive, 00:33:50.930 --> 00:33:53.870 library or archive will respect that and say, okay, 00:33:53.870 --> 00:33:56.719 we're going to hold this, we're going to seal this until 00:33:56.719 --> 00:34:00.720 such and such a date in accordance with their wishes. 00:34:01.120 --> 00:34:06.004 So some steps to a successful interview. 00:34:06.004 --> 00:34:09.469 Ask clear, inappropriate questions. 00:34:09.469 --> 00:34:13.850 This is probably harder than because often, 00:34:13.850 --> 00:34:15.725 especially when you start out interviewing, 00:34:15.725 --> 00:34:17.149 you're gonna be nervous. 00:34:17.149 --> 00:34:20.615 And you're probably going to ask a question that is like 00:34:20.615 --> 00:34:22.685 fully a minute long and has like 00:34:22.685 --> 00:34:24.740 three different questions within it. 00:34:24.740 --> 00:34:26.224 You don't want to do that. 00:34:26.224 --> 00:34:29.404 You want to ask one question at a time. 00:34:29.404 --> 00:34:31.010 So it's really good ahead of 00:34:31.010 --> 00:34:32.974 time to write out an interview guide. 00:34:32.974 --> 00:34:35.930 A list of questions that you want to ask doesn't mean 00:34:35.930 --> 00:34:39.365 that you go through that list of questions robotically. 00:34:39.365 --> 00:34:41.090 Like you're doing a survey, 00:34:41.090 --> 00:34:44.194 you want to have an intimate conversation with somebody. 00:34:44.194 --> 00:34:46.205 You want to show that you are listening. 00:34:46.205 --> 00:34:48.379 You want to respond to what they're telling you. 00:34:48.379 --> 00:34:52.205 And so that means being flexible, 00:34:52.205 --> 00:34:54.035 being responsive to what they're saying, 00:34:54.035 --> 00:34:55.639 but also making sure that 00:34:55.639 --> 00:34:57.394 you hit all the points that you want to hit. 00:34:57.394 --> 00:34:59.959 So having your questions written out ahead 00:34:59.959 --> 00:35:02.330 of time really helps along 00:35:02.330 --> 00:35:03.349 these lines for you to ask 00:35:03.349 --> 00:35:04.879 those questions that you know are going to 00:35:04.879 --> 00:35:09.049 be clearly worded by appropriate. 00:35:09.049 --> 00:35:12.214 I mean, if you have 00:35:12.214 --> 00:35:15.455 a really good rapport established with the narrator, 00:35:15.455 --> 00:35:16.880 where you feel like you can ask 00:35:16.880 --> 00:35:18.365 them more personal questions. 00:35:18.365 --> 00:35:20.480 Are they open up that space for 00:35:20.480 --> 00:35:21.590 you to ask them 00:35:21.590 --> 00:35:23.675 about more personal aspects of their life. 00:35:23.675 --> 00:35:25.415 Go ahead and do so. 00:35:25.415 --> 00:35:29.645 But read the room. Like read what their energy is, 00:35:29.645 --> 00:35:32.254 what they seem willing to talk about, what they don't. 00:35:32.254 --> 00:35:35.239 They can always decline to answer a question. 00:35:35.239 --> 00:35:37.399 But you just want to be sensitive in 00:35:37.399 --> 00:35:39.870 interview context to what they seem open to. 00:35:39.870 --> 00:35:42.380 It's important to listen to the narrator. 00:35:42.380 --> 00:35:44.030 That might seem obvious. 00:35:44.030 --> 00:35:49.040 But again, it can be easy if you 00:35:49.040 --> 00:35:51.589 have your interview guide written not to just go through 00:35:51.589 --> 00:35:53.449 those questions because it's a thing that 00:35:53.449 --> 00:35:55.670 you have to fall back on. 00:35:55.670 --> 00:35:58.309 Really good interviewers, though. 00:35:58.309 --> 00:36:00.935 We'll make the narrator 00:36:00.935 --> 00:36:02.720 forget that they're being interviewed, 00:36:02.720 --> 00:36:04.909 will make it feel more like a conversation. 00:36:04.909 --> 00:36:07.175 That doesn't mean that you spend a lot of time talking. 00:36:07.175 --> 00:36:09.829 Actually, you should spend probably 95% or 00:36:09.829 --> 00:36:12.950 more of the time listening to the other person. 00:36:12.950 --> 00:36:15.050 Because we're not here to record yourself. 00:36:15.050 --> 00:36:17.794 We're here to record their story, right? 00:36:17.794 --> 00:36:24.905 So it's all about learning to ask those good, 00:36:24.905 --> 00:36:26.599 open-ended questions that get 00:36:26.599 --> 00:36:29.045 somebody talking and keeps them talking. 00:36:29.045 --> 00:36:31.535 And then when they stop talking, 00:36:31.535 --> 00:36:33.995 I use the rule that I also use in teaching. 00:36:33.995 --> 00:36:36.455 Which is when you ask a question, 00:36:36.455 --> 00:36:40.475 wait 7 s before you follow up. 00:36:40.475 --> 00:36:42.709 Because when we're asking a question, right. 00:36:42.709 --> 00:36:44.989 So like I asked you a question, 00:36:44.989 --> 00:36:47.735 you have to hear the question, 00:36:47.735 --> 00:36:49.985 process the question and your brain, 00:36:49.985 --> 00:36:53.795 formulate a response, and then articulate that response. 00:36:53.795 --> 00:36:57.125 And that's actually like kind of a lengthy process. 00:36:57.125 --> 00:37:00.410 But we, as part 00:37:00.410 --> 00:37:03.274 of human nature or social conditioning, I'm not sure. 00:37:03.274 --> 00:37:04.204 Whatever. 00:37:04.204 --> 00:37:07.205 We don't like to hear, silence, right? 00:37:07.205 --> 00:37:08.990 It kinda makes you nervous and you want to fill 00:37:08.990 --> 00:37:12.004 that silence with another question 00:37:12.004 --> 00:37:13.789 or some were talking 00:37:13.789 --> 00:37:17.480 because you're nervous and that's fine. 00:37:17.480 --> 00:37:19.654 So after asking you a question, 00:37:19.654 --> 00:37:21.500 you might count in your head 00:37:21.500 --> 00:37:31.100 1234567, before following up. 00:37:31.100 --> 00:37:32.750 And same thing when somebody gets to 00:37:32.750 --> 00:37:34.565 what sounds like the end of a story, 00:37:34.565 --> 00:37:37.190 I like leaves him dead space there. 00:37:37.190 --> 00:37:41.434 Because they might be hesitating 00:37:41.434 --> 00:37:43.369 or whatever or something just 00:37:43.369 --> 00:37:46.070 might be churning in their brain. 00:37:46.070 --> 00:37:48.800 That comes out and then is really interesting. 00:37:48.800 --> 00:37:51.200 And if you step on that by talking, 00:37:51.200 --> 00:37:53.120 you might miss something. 00:37:53.120 --> 00:37:56.240 I'll never know that you must listen to 00:37:56.240 --> 00:38:00.080 the narrator and don't be afraid of that dead air. 00:38:00.080 --> 00:38:02.404 It takes nothing away from you. 00:38:02.404 --> 00:38:03.650 It might make you feel nervous, but it 00:38:03.650 --> 00:38:05.164 takes nothing away from you. 00:38:05.164 --> 00:38:08.269 And it might actually lead you to really, really good, 00:38:08.269 --> 00:38:10.760 some really good nugget of information or 00:38:10.760 --> 00:38:12.349 a fantastic story that 00:38:12.349 --> 00:38:14.674 is going to make your research so much richer. 00:38:14.674 --> 00:38:17.089 Again, it's very important to be given narrators 00:38:17.089 --> 00:38:20.010 this base to talk and recollect. 00:38:20.830 --> 00:38:24.214 Sometimes people will ask, well what did, 00:38:24.214 --> 00:38:27.244 what did they do off-topic and the general responses, 00:38:27.244 --> 00:38:29.975 there is no off-topic. Your history. 00:38:29.975 --> 00:38:32.900 You don't really get to decide what is on and off topic. 00:38:32.900 --> 00:38:34.969 And maybe more or less interesting to you. 00:38:34.969 --> 00:38:36.950 But it's gooey indistinct of that. 00:38:36.950 --> 00:38:39.815 And very possibly it'll be interesting to 00:38:39.815 --> 00:38:43.145 somebody else who may access the interview there. 00:38:43.145 --> 00:38:46.265 So again, devolving power in interview contexts. 00:38:46.265 --> 00:38:48.634 This is one another way that we do it. 00:38:48.634 --> 00:38:52.190 By putting narrators in the driver's seat. 00:38:52.190 --> 00:38:53.509 We are creating the space for 00:38:53.509 --> 00:38:55.160 them to talk and recollects. 00:38:55.160 --> 00:38:58.340 We're not directing the conversation in 00:38:58.340 --> 00:39:01.670 any other way than asking good open-ended questions. 00:39:01.670 --> 00:39:03.529 And then when they did, 00:39:03.529 --> 00:39:05.899 had given him very long response 00:39:05.899 --> 00:39:08.029 as some good follow-up questions. 00:39:08.029 --> 00:39:09.154 Like that's another way that you 00:39:09.154 --> 00:39:10.370 showed that you are listening and 00:39:10.370 --> 00:39:13.054 engaged is by asking them about what they just told you, 00:39:13.054 --> 00:39:15.799 rather than necessarily moving on 00:39:15.799 --> 00:39:19.100 to the next question in an interview guide. 00:39:19.100 --> 00:39:22.624 So again, pay attention to nonverbal cues. 00:39:22.624 --> 00:39:26.090 This can be signs of discomfort, 00:39:26.090 --> 00:39:29.524 signs of being tired, 00:39:29.524 --> 00:39:32.239 especially with older narrators. 00:39:32.239 --> 00:39:34.910 You want to pay attention to what somebody's 00:39:34.910 --> 00:39:37.189 energy level is like 00:39:37.189 --> 00:39:39.844 to make sure that you're not over taxing them. 00:39:39.844 --> 00:39:41.539 You can always put an interview out 00:39:41.539 --> 00:39:44.044 across multiple days if you have to. 00:39:44.044 --> 00:39:46.400 Just pay attention to where people are 00:39:46.400 --> 00:39:49.025 at in the interview contexts. 00:39:49.025 --> 00:39:53.840 Whether that means, you know, anxiety, discomfort, 00:39:53.840 --> 00:39:58.039 tiredness, whatever the attuned 00:39:58.039 --> 00:40:00.545 to what's going on with them as much as you can. 00:40:00.545 --> 00:40:03.725 And then again, asking good follow-up questions. 00:40:03.725 --> 00:40:09.260 This is really a skill that you develop over time. 00:40:09.260 --> 00:40:11.479 I hope that I'm better at it now than I 00:40:11.479 --> 00:40:13.759 was when I started doing interviews. 00:40:13.759 --> 00:40:16.460 But it's something that you want to keep in mind, 00:40:16.460 --> 00:40:19.009 but also something that you will get better at. 00:40:19.009 --> 00:40:23.370 The Moore interviewing that you do. 00:40:23.650 --> 00:40:28.009 Some quick tips for according test. 00:40:28.009 --> 00:40:30.019 You test your equipment beforehand, 00:40:30.019 --> 00:40:32.284 make sure you know how to use it. 00:40:32.284 --> 00:40:34.279 Do like a short drive 00:40:34.279 --> 00:40:37.580 around so that you know how your mic works, 00:40:37.580 --> 00:40:39.995 how your camera works, however together, 00:40:39.995 --> 00:40:42.605 what kind of settings you need to have. 00:40:42.605 --> 00:40:44.750 You want to find a quiet space where 00:40:44.750 --> 00:40:46.355 the narrator is comfortable. 00:40:46.355 --> 00:40:52.040 So I always warn people against interviewing outside. 00:40:52.040 --> 00:40:54.019 When I interview anybody in a coffee shop, 00:40:54.019 --> 00:40:55.505 I went to intervene in the new restaurant 00:40:55.505 --> 00:40:56.749 or bar anywhere that 00:40:56.749 --> 00:41:00.480 you have a lot of background noise going on? 00:41:01.780 --> 00:41:05.180 I would just say that in general, 00:41:05.180 --> 00:41:08.420 if there's a if there's a situation where 00:41:08.420 --> 00:41:10.984 that's really important are appropriate for your project, 00:41:10.984 --> 00:41:13.144 then obviously that could change. 00:41:13.144 --> 00:41:16.235 But you want to think about the quality of the recording, 00:41:16.235 --> 00:41:17.749 not only for people down the line, 00:41:17.749 --> 00:41:20.239 but just so that you can actually listen to it 00:41:20.239 --> 00:41:23.850 and transcribe it after the recording is done. 00:41:24.910 --> 00:41:28.205 When I'm talking about interviewing people, 00:41:28.205 --> 00:41:32.300 generally it's like they have a lot later maker, 00:41:32.300 --> 00:41:34.069 I use mostly lot of interaction. 00:41:34.069 --> 00:41:37.039 Think of a library we use that later, mixer, lapel banks. 00:41:37.039 --> 00:41:39.664 So if you're doing that, you want to watch out for 00:41:39.664 --> 00:41:42.845 jewelry and clothing like scarves. 00:41:42.845 --> 00:41:45.454 And you want to monitor your sound. 00:41:45.454 --> 00:41:47.719 So if you have a, 00:41:47.719 --> 00:41:49.474 if you're using a video camera to record, 00:41:49.474 --> 00:41:50.974 there's always a headphone jack. 00:41:50.974 --> 00:41:52.399 Have a pair of headphones, plugged 00:41:52.399 --> 00:41:53.629 them and keep them in during the interviews, 00:41:53.629 --> 00:41:55.250 you can listen to the audio is 00:41:55.250 --> 00:41:57.590 actually going into your recording device. 00:41:57.590 --> 00:42:01.490 And that's where we'll pick up a battery dying, 00:42:01.490 --> 00:42:06.799 a maintenance, malfunctioning, or a problem like this. 00:42:06.799 --> 00:42:09.289 It's like making a lot of noise or a scarf. 00:42:09.289 --> 00:42:10.340 It's like rubbing against 00:42:10.340 --> 00:42:13.669 the standing for a bad coordinate. 00:42:13.669 --> 00:42:15.544 Monitors, headphones, 00:42:15.544 --> 00:42:18.484 and then be aware of harsh lighting or, 00:42:18.484 --> 00:42:20.705 and, or changing length. 00:42:20.705 --> 00:42:22.969 I'll confess, lighting is something that 00:42:22.969 --> 00:42:26.250 I still really struggle with. 00:42:27.160 --> 00:42:30.709 I don't certainly don't see 00:42:30.709 --> 00:42:34.145 anybody in front of a break window, which I've done. 00:42:34.145 --> 00:42:36.845 I generally recommend against 00:42:36.845 --> 00:42:40.100 using like just natural light in an interview. 00:42:40.100 --> 00:42:43.609 I had wanted to do it so long that 00:42:43.609 --> 00:42:45.830 like 5 h and 00:42:45.830 --> 00:42:48.290 the sunlight pretty much sat like during the interview. 00:42:48.290 --> 00:42:49.399 So by the end of the interview, 00:42:49.399 --> 00:42:51.200 the guy had like venetian 00:42:51.200 --> 00:42:54.080 blind like stripes going across his chest 00:42:54.080 --> 00:42:55.910 because the sun was coming in through 00:42:55.910 --> 00:42:58.910 the window creating a head shadow across him. 00:42:58.910 --> 00:43:00.664 But I don't want to stop him because he 00:43:00.664 --> 00:43:03.019 was really on a roll. 00:43:03.019 --> 00:43:06.815 So just think about your lighting. 00:43:06.815 --> 00:43:10.310 Kinda like people in a way that is flattering to them. 00:43:10.310 --> 00:43:11.839 And this is assuming of course that you're 00:43:11.839 --> 00:43:13.669 doing or doing video recording. 00:43:13.669 --> 00:43:14.899 We're doing all the audio recorder 00:43:14.899 --> 00:43:15.799 you don't have to think about, 00:43:15.799 --> 00:43:17.840 but aside from maybe being able to 00:43:17.840 --> 00:43:21.149 see the other great thing.