Methodology Statement (Revised)

(Slightly updated to include less specific info!)

This methodology statement serves as a rough outline of the steps, core beliefs, and concerns that will guide an oral history interview. I intend for this to act as a living document, one that will continue to be shaped by the ideas of my classmates and the theorists that we read. 

Drawing from The Oral History Manual by Barbara W. Sommer and Mary Kay Quinlan, the interview should begin with bibliographic research, an outline of research topics, a compilation of narrator-specific research, and the creation of an interview outline (31). In addition, I would like to develop some sort of supplementary material (a lá the brochure Jeremy Brecher used in the “Pet Outsider” article)  to provide for our interviewee to look over prior to the interview, so that they are well-informed. During the interview, release forms should be explained and later signed (if they have not been previously), and an equipment check should be performed prior to the interview. The narrator should be profusely thanked following the interview, and the oral history should be properly cataloged and preserved in accordance with the means and goals of the project. (Sommer and Quinlan, 32) However many times you have thanked an interviewee, you should always thank them more! 

Though these are wonderful practical steps to lay out for the interview process, this checklist does not serve to answer the myriad of ethical concerns that can plague an oral history practice. Many of the concerns on my mind were put there by Lynn Abrams in her work Oral History Theory, which works through some of the dicier aspects of the oral history practice. I am concerned with how power might play into an interview, especially during a time when many people are feeling tension and suppression in this political climate. It is likely that some will be feeling hesitant to express their unabashed opinions, so this is perhaps the time to become well-versed in reading the silences and body language during an interview. I additionally want to recognize that often the individuals most easy to contact for an interview are high-profile ones, whose points of view will often overpower or exclude others. Just as Abrams writes that oral history must uncover “how power is distributed in society and how those with political, economic or cultural power use it to their or others’ advantage or disadvantage,” I am hoping to use oral history to better understand how power functions in events and the ways those events live on in memories (161). The afterlife of an event is equally important to me as the event itself: How are memories shaped by the hierarchies we are entrapped by? 

I also want to be conscious of maintaining my own neutrality during the interview. I’ve worked in the Greater Philadelphia arts and culture scene for a few years now, so I have my fair share of preconceived notions about the scene (both positive and negative), that I would have to take into consideration if I was interviewing someone from the field. In a similar vein, I want to make sure that I am careful not to lose any of what is said in shorthand, and ask the interviewee to define terms or abbreviations as needed so that the record can more accurately reflect the conversation (using Sherrie Tucker as a bit of reverse guidance here —- she reminds me not to become overly familiar with a subject or assume an audience’s familiarity with them). 

I hope that the beginnings of these practices will ultimately prove useful in the study of history by encouraging a “shared authority.” In Michael Frisch’s Shared Authority, he explains that “in the same sense that both interviewer and interviewee are the “authors” of an oral historical document, public-historical presentation has the challenge of finding ways of sharing the “author-ity” of interpretation with the public” (226). The end goal is to co-create an oral historical document with an interviewee and to preserve this for the public’s usage, as a culminating practice of shared authority. This is especially important when thinking about bottom-up oral histories, as institutions have been built by people that have gone unrecognized for their efforts, their perspectives unpreserved outside of the sterilized official records. As we have discussed in class, oftentimes all it takes is one individual to drive momentous change. Highlighting the individual in co-creating an oral history allows us to understand a history directly from the source that creates it —- quite a worthwhile practice. 

Works referenced: 

Abrams, Lynn. Oral History Theory. London and New York: Routledge, 2010.

Brecher, Jeremy. “How I Learned to Quit Worrying and Love Community History: A “Pet Outsider’s” Report on the Brass Workers History Project,” in Radical History Review, 1984, p. 187–201. 

Frisch, Michael. A Shared Authority: Essays on the Craft and Meaning of Oral and Public History. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1990. 

Sommer, Barbara W. and Mary Kay Quinlan. “Planning Overview,” in The Oral History Manual. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2018, p. 29–35.
Tucker, Sherrie. Swing Shift: “All Girl” Bands of the 1940s. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2000.