The Canadian oral history reader

Llewellyn, Kristina R., (author, Editor). Freund, Alexander, (author, Editor). Reilly, Nolan. (Editor).

Summary: Despite a long and rich tradition of oral history research, few are aware of the innovative and groundbreaking work of oral historians in Canada. For this first primer on the practices within the discipline, the editors of The Canadian Oral History Reader have gathered some of the best contributions from a diverse field. Essays survey and explore fundamental and often thorny aspects in oral history methodology, interpretation, preservation and presentation, and advocacy. In plain language, they explain how to conduct research with indigenous communities, navigate difficult relationships with informants, and negotiate issues of copyright, slander, and libel. The authors ask how people’s memories and stories can be used as historical evidence - and whether it is ethical to use them at all. Their detailed and compelling case studies draw readers into the thrills and predicaments of recording people’s most intimate experiences, and refashioning them in transcripts and academic analyses. They also consider how to best present and preserve this invaluable archive of Canadian memories.

Record details

ISBN: 9780773544963 (pbk.)
Physical Description: print
xii, 388 p. : ill. ; 23 cm.
Publisher: Montreal, QC : McGill Queen's University Press, 2015.

Content descriptions

Bibliography, etc. Note:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Formatted Contents Note:

Methodology -- Methodology for recording oral histories in the Aboriginal community -- Sharing authority with Baba -- Oral history and ethical practices after TCPS2 -- Legal issues regarding oral histories -- Interpretation -- Reflections on the politics and praxis of working-class oral histories -- Productive tensions: feminist readings of women teachers' oral histories -- A Canadian family talks about Oma's life in Nazi Germany: three generational interviews and communicative memory -- Oral history, narrative strategies, and Native American historiography -- Preservation and presentation -- Hidden from historians: preserving lesbian oral history in Canada -- Oral history as process-generated data -- "When I was your age": bearing witness in Holocaust education in Montreal -- Listening and learning with life stories of human rights violations -- Advocacy -- Narrative wisps of the Ochekiwi Sipi past: a journey in recovering collective memories -- I can hear Lois now: corrections to my story of the internment of Japanese Canadians -- Contested memories: efforts of the powerful to silence former inmates' histories of life in an institution for "mental defectives" -- "Don't speak for me": practising oral history amid the legacies of conflict.