Oral History

Oral history is one of the oldest, best known, and most often used methods in qualitative research. Oral historians ask people to talk about their overall life experiences or to discuss specific experiences and events in a narrative form, recording this information with either audio or video equipment. The aim of oral history is to gain first-hand knowledge from people who have lived through different social–historical–political periods and events. This methodology allows the researcher to document what the person has lived through and to analyze this information for underlying meanings and significance that such an event or a time period has for the informant. Oral history provides information that cannot be gleaned from any other sources, and it gives voice to ordinary and often marginalized peoples whose stories might never have been documented otherwise.

Oral history is of importance for qualitative research since it forms the basis for many studies. As one of the foremost open-ended techniques for gathering information about people, it has had a major impact on other types of qualitative interviews. That is, interviewing modes such as open-ended interviews, life story interviews, and semi-structured interviews often draw upon the oral history tradition. Oral history has not only influenced interviewing techniques, but also opened up ways of thinking about data collection in general and about the value of combining oral history with different modes of learning about others—such as the analysis of written formal documents and observations. Finally, oral history cuts across disciplines in the humanities and the social sciences, making it a research method that is used by scholars, students, educators, writers, and folklorists working from diverse backgrounds and interests.

This entry presents an overview of oral history, its scope and major contributors, and then briefly describes its basic techniques. It ends with examples of major oral history projects that have been undertaken around the world in recent years and information on resources of interest for beginning and experienced oral historians.