oral history

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Date:Oral History
By definition, oral history refers to field the field of study and a process used in gathering, preserving the voices and memories of the participants, people and the community focused on their past events. Presently, the oral history approach is used to refer to the formal rehearsed accounts of the past activities as endorsed or practiced by people and is culturally supported by the custodian of the tradition. These people involve co-workers, neighbors, and family members. It also helps to connect the present experience of a community with their past through opening dialogs (Portelli 23).
Oral history aims to bring the past happenings into the real-time without alterations. It also enhances people memorability in preserving the essential details or activities connected to a given community (Portelli 33). Thus, oral history serves to guide the remembrance of people’s history and to filter the actual incidences as held in people’s memory (Portelli 38).
To conduct an oral history interview, the historian’s design a method to reach the appropriate repository which seems well equipped with fine details on the history in question. The oral historians choose the potential narrators from their relevant experiences on the subject at hand. Background research on the topic and the persons to be involved is done before formulating the questions to ask. The historians ought to use modern means of communication such as an email to reach out the interviewee.

Upon agreement, a pre-interview session that has no recording is conducted between the two parties. Here the interviewee is briefed on the reasons for holding the interview, the topics to be covered and the possible questions. The procedures to be involved are accessed to the interviewee, and the legal documents are signed. The best digital equipment is used during recording to capture the actual voices and the visual images.
Work Cited.
Portelli, Alessandro. “Oral history as genre.” Narrative and genre. Routledge, 2017. 23-45.