\n| Who is the narrator?<\/td>\n | \n\n- What is the narrator\u2019s relationship to the events under discussion?<\/li>\n
- What stake might the narrator have in presenting their particular version of events?<\/li>\n
- What effect might the narrator\u2019s social identity and position have on the interview?<\/li>\n
- Does the narrator have a prior relationship with the interviewer?<\/li>\n
- How does the narrator present themself in the interview?<\/li>\n
- What influences\u2014personal, cultural, social\u2014might shape the way the narrator expresses himself or herself?<\/li>\n
- What sort of character does the narrator become in the interview?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\n| Who is the interviewer?<\/td>\n | \n\n- What background and interests does the interviewer bring to the topic of the interview?\n
\n- How might this affect the interview?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n
- How do the interviewer\u2019s questions shape the story told? Has the interviewer prepared for the interview?<\/li>\n
- How adept is the interviewer in getting the narrator to tell their story in their own way?<\/li>\n
- Does the interviewer have a prior relationship with the narrator?\n
\n- How might this affect the interview?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n
- What effect might the interviewer\u2019s social identity and position have on the interviewee, and hence the interview?<\/li>\n
- How might the dynamic between narrator and interviewer effect what is said in the interview?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\n| What Are They Talking About?<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n | \n| What has been said in the interview?<\/td>\n | \n\n- In which languages is the interview conducted?<\/li>\n
- In which languages is the interview presented?<\/li>\n
- How has the narrator structured the interview?<\/li>\n
- What\u2019s the plot of the story?\n
\n- What does this tell us about the way the narrator thinks about his or her experience?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n
- What does the narrator avoid or sidestep?<\/li>\n
- What topics does the narrator especially warm to, or speak about with interest, enthusiasm, or conviction?\n
\n- What might this tell us?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n
- Are there times when the narrator doesn\u2019t seem to answer the question posed?\n
\n- What might be the reason for this?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n
- Are there significant factual errors in the narrative?<\/li>\n
- Is it internally consistent?<\/li>\n
- How might you account for errors and inconsistencies?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\n| Why Are They Talking?<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n | \n| For what purpose has this interview been conducted?<\/td>\n | \n\n- How might the purpose have shaped the content, perspective, and tone of the interview?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\n| What Are the Circumstances of the Interview?<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n | \n| <\/td>\n | \n\n- What technologies are used to record the interview?\n
\n- What shortcomings might those technologies have?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n
- Has the interview been edited or altered?<\/li>\n
- What effect might the location of the interview have had on what was said in the interview?<\/li>\n
- If anyone other than the interviewer and interviewee were present, what effect might the presence of this other person have had on the interview?<\/li>\n
- Do you know the mental and physical health of the narrator and interviewer?\n
\n- What effect might these have had on the interview?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n
adapted from Linda Shopes, “Making Sense of Oral History,” History Matters: The U.S. Survey Course on the Web<\/em>, http:\/\/historymatters.gmu.edu\/mse\/oral\/, February 2002.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Previous Section\u00a0<\/a>|\u00a0Next Section<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Estimated time to complete this section: 7 minutes The term \u201coral history\u201d can refer to both formal and informal accounts about the past. For our purposes, oral history is a self-aware, disciplined conversation between two people about either some aspect of the past considered by them to be of historical significance or their personal […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":81,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"page-templates\/page-sidebar-left.php","meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/locallinkages.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/485"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/locallinkages.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/locallinkages.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/locallinkages.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/locallinkages.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=485"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/locallinkages.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/485\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1528,"href":"https:\/\/locallinkages.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/485\/revisions\/1528"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/locallinkages.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/81"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/locallinkages.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=485"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}} | | | | |