Th concept of oral history was the basis for my research thesis from Contextual studies last year. The thesis was titled, Tall Stories of History; the impacts of mediating community narratives. The basis of my work sprung from these competeing ideas:
“Oral history is the history of the common folk, the minorities, the illiterate, the non-writers because they have not previously been treated historically” (1983, John Bury)
In response;
“It is that, but not only that, nor even especially that. It is the account of all people in their own words.”
(Willa Baum, 1983).
I looked at the effect of mediatising community narratives on things like identity- building of identity and the reduction of it through media towards essentialism, power and the subaltern. My central argument was that
… Recording oral narratives of identity is an accessible and participatory form of resistance and recovery; that it involves cultural teaching, learning and sharing while promoting diversity, unity, affirmation and empowerment. [The essay] will explore the power and challenges embedded in telling a story ‘in their own words’ locally, and the challenges it poses to the omnipresent ideologies within external communities.
..and concluded that:
Mediating community narratives where unity, diversity, participation and ownership are emphasised, steers a balance of negotiations within the construction of identity. The impact of recording community narrative is, therefore, is an active construction of local and individual identity that ‘we tell of ourselves’, as well as challenging and reframing the stories ‘others tell of us’.
In many ways, the project for 2008 is about how to put all those fantastic things into practice, while avoiding situations where constructed narratives or identities are essentialised or colonised. Given this previous research though, it is very important to me that these aims are paramount in the construction the documentary. I really hope these aims are now expressed in the abstract.
