1. Methodology and Practice
- In Hurricane Sandy on New Jersey’s Forgotten Shore, you were collecting oral histories while the community was still processing the disaster. How did doing oral history “in real time” change your approach compared to more retrospective projects?
- How did you decide what counted as “enough” voices or representation for the project? Were there moments when you had to balance breadth versus depth in your interviews?
2. Ethics and Power
- Oral historians often talk about “shared authority,” but in post-disaster contexts the power dynamics can be particularly sensitive. How did you navigate that with your narrators—especially if/when their experiences or needs conflicted with your goals as a researcher?
- Did any of your interviewees later express discomfort or change their perspective on being included in the project? If so, how did you handle that?
3. Emotion and Empathy in Fieldwork
- Oral history requires both empathy and distance. How did you care for yourself emotionally while listening to stories of trauma and loss, and how did you maintain the trust of your narrators through that process?
- If you (or any of your students) had experienced loss from Sandy, do you feel you were “objective enough” to endeavor upon oral history interviews so soon after the storm?
4. Public History and Impact
- Your project is both a book and a digital archive. Who was your intended audience while designing the project?
- Looking back, do you see the Hurricane Sandy project as an act of scholarship, community service, or activism—or all three?
5. Lessons for Emerging Oral Historians
- What’s something you wish you’d known before starting Hurricane Sandy on New Jersey’s Forgotten Shore—a challenge that doesn’t get mentioned in oral history manuals but feels essential to the work?
- How do you advise students to balance fidelity to oral history best practices with the improvisation that fieldwork sometimes demands?