Seminar: Voices and Memory : Australian Oral History
Saturday 8 March 1997, National Library of Australia, Parkes Place, Canberra
This site is still under construction. Ultimately it will consist of:
1) some key issues highlighted by speakers and audience
2) most of the papers from the seminar, with some audio extracts
3) your comments in the Online Discussion.
General Information
You can visit the summary and read Barry York's review of it which appeared in the May 1997 issue of National Library of Australia News. Barry York was a speaker at the seminar and, at the time, a Harold White Fellow at the National Library.
The National Library of Australia holds the largest oral history collection in the Southern Hemisphere, a vast national resource of voices and memories. A number of its publications have been based on material from the Oral History Collection, most recently A Passion for Dance by Michelle Potter. Other library publications include The Hazel de Berg Recordings and Interviewing for Oral History at the National Library of Australia: A Short Guide by Alec Bolton. The Library Shop also sells copies of selected oral history tapes and transcripts .
The Oral History Association of Australia recently held a national conference called 'Crossing Borders' in Alice Springs. This was the venue for the launch of Australia's Oral History Collections: A National Directory, which has been published by the National Library of Australia for the Towards Federation 2001 Committee. Copies can be ordered through the Library Shop
Summary
In opening the seminar, Director-General Warren Horton noted that it was 40 years ago that the National Library's association with Australian oral history began. In March 1957, Hazel de Berg made her first field recording with Dame Mary Gilmore in Sydney. Since that time, the National Library has become Australia's leading centre for Oral History . From interviews with eminent Australians in the fields of politics, government, public administration, law, science, religion, business and labour history, journalism and the arts, to the development of strong collections in folklore, the National Library's oral history program collects personal insights, observations and details of experience which have not been recorded elsewhere. Mr Horton cited his own 18 hours of recordings as an example of the latter and characterised oral history as a medium to 'capture illusive information'. He commented that the last 15 years had been particularly remarkable and drew attention to important social history projects that had been undertaken by the National Library in the areas of unemployment, Australians' reactions to AIDS, Aboriginal Australia, and folklore.
Increasingly the importance of oral histories in providing a richer texture in the fabric of our heritage and history is recognised. The seminar Voices and Memory: Australian Oral History was the first seminar at the National Library devoted entirely to oral history. As such, the seminar showcased many of the Library's current oral history projects, and focused on primary themes and future directions of oral history. Speakers included the Library's oral history manager, Mark Cranfield; interviewers for some recent Library oral history projects, including Ragbir Bhathal, Diana Giese, Barry York, Michelle Potter, Peter Read and Jackie Huggins; media personalities Daniel Connell and Robin Hughes.
Pivotal to the seminar was how oral history differed from other forms of historical record, a theme introduced by Michelle Potter, performing arts and dance historian. Scientist Ragbir Bhathal-author of the National Library of Australia publication Australian Astronomers that is based on interviews he conducted with astronomers-is currently working on recording the experiences of women scientists. He highlighted the importance of oral history in creating a more complete picture of scientists, who rarely publish memoirs. Oral recordings enable scientists to tell their stories in their own words, and to place their discoveries and research in a broader context.
Daniel Connell gave numerous examples of oral history's ability to 'individualise history', and Barry York referred to oral history as being indispensable to the historian's goal of 'capturing the full human story and giving it meaning'. Diana Giese argued that oral history provides a space in which both the interviewer and informant can explore the ways people make sense of their lives. Both Diana Giese and Barry York have a considerable background in interviewing people who settled in Australia as migrants from other countries, and have completed significant oral history projects with these groups for the Library. The National Library has published Giese's Beyond Chinatown: Changing Perspectives on the Top End Chinese Experience.
Speakers had differing views on interviewing techniques and methodologies. Some were in favour of a highly structured interview; others preferred to allow interviewing subjects to speak on topics they preferred; others still chose an approach which was 'loosely structured'. All speakers emphasised the need for good interviewing techniques and preparation. As Robin Hughes mentioned, the ability to listen closely to subjects and to draw out their stories so that the subject, rather than the interviewer is the focus of the material, is crucial to a successful interview.
The future of oral history also merited considerable discussion. The 'Seven Years On' project, conducted by Jackie Huggins and Peter Read, involves prominent young Aboriginals talking about their lives and predicting their future. After seven years, Peter and Jackie will re-interview their subjects. Preservation issues and future digital technologies were discussed in tours of the Oral History and Sound Preservation sections of the National Library. Barry York described his technique of interviewing for the future: of asking himself whether the interview would be regarded as worthwhile 50 years hence.
Robin Hughes, director of the film series Australian Biography, in which well-known Australians talk about their lives, spoke about the importance of film in highlighting 'the landscape of the face'. She explained how film can capture nuances which audio recordings could not. Like Daniel Connell, Robin echoed the need for oral history and film to be regarded as 'complementary' sources of history, rather than competing sources.
In exploring why oral history matters, Mark Cranfield pointed out that while oral history interviews do not constitute legal depositions nor necessarily verified historical evidence, they can offer information not available in other formats. For example, interviews which take a discursive-dialogue approach can potentiate the emergence of personality as well as fact. He proposed that there are strong connections between voice, ear and mind, and that this 'auditory intelligence' is very deep-seated in humans. This philosophy provided affirmation of the title of the seminar, Voices and Memory.
Key Issues
After reading the papers below, visitors to this site are encouraged to continue discussion of some of the key issues addressed at the seminar. All visitors to the online Voices and Memory seminar are encouraged to offer comments, to ask questions, to contribute to ongoing discussion, and to offer their own experiences and insights. Moderated contributions will be archived below in the Online Discussion.
In planning the seminar, the major questions considered for discussion were:
- What is oral history? and what is it not?
- Why is it important?
- How do its contents and methodology differ from other historical 'documents'?
- What issues face researchers using oral histories?
- What implications do new technologies have for oral histories? (This question was dealt with primarily in the context of a tour of the Library's Sound Preservation section. However, Barry York opened his presentation with a relevant quotable quote: 'Once you go DAT* you never go back!')
* DAT = digital audio tape
Specific points for discussion arising from remarks made by the chairs, presenters, the audience and the discussion group included:
- Is oral history really history at all? Or is it rather a record of voice and memory; subjective memories putting 'flesh on the bones of history'? Barry York raised these questions, but Jackie Huggins pointed out that in the prospective 'Seven Years On' project (with Peter Read) the recordings relate to the present and future, and are therefore less dependent on long-term memory. Daniel Connell remarked that oral history could actually be a dangerous source of information for future historians because of the psychological factors, but that this is avoidable by adopting the view that the message is not what is said, but rather how it is said. He went further to say that what oral history does best is to individualise history, hence the need for a wide spectrum of interviewees to get a good perspective on an historical topic.
Jan Fullerton, the Chair, identified oral history as an important source documenting popular culture, and ordinary events of life, a priority collecting area for the National Library. In this vein Charles T. Morrissey wrote (in the Introduction to Dunaway and Baum's Oral History: An Interdisciplinary Anthology):
Oral historians are in the vanguard of scholars trying to record and interpret what is variously called "grass-roots history," or the history of the nonelite, or demotic history, or the history of ordinary people as they lived their ordinary lives.
- All case study presenters clearly indicated that pre-interview research and preparation is vital to a successful oral history project. However, specific approaches to interviewing varied tremendously from Diana Giese's self-styled democratic approach of going where the interviewee wants to take her, so to speak, through Ragbir Bhathal's focused interview based on extensive background approach, to Barry York's structured approach of preliminary questionnaire followed by a structured interview to seek information in predetermined areas for a predetermined purpose.
Of course, there were advocates for hybrids of these approaches. Robin Hughes was one of these but she argued that predetermined interview structures, within which you can be flexible offered security to subjects. However, that structure should be contained in a mental map- 'no clipboards! Listen hard, and be prepared.'
- Michelle Potter raised the interesting subject of 'applied oral history'. She was advocating that oral history be more widely used in exhibition, lecture and other contexts.
- A question from the audience concerned whether oral history subjects find the process of being interviewed therapeutic, and whether therapists could learn from oral history techniques.
- Collecting oral history is an expensive exercise and making it accessible requires very intensive work, according to Jan Fullerton, the National Library's senior manager for Collection and Reader Services. New technologies present fantastic access opportunities, eg linking searchable transcripts to audio files on the World Wide Web, but are also huge, maybe even daunting, challenges.
Voices and Memory Speakers
To read a paper, select the title. Note that biographical descriptions of the speakers were correct at the time of the seminar and will not be updated.
Copyright
Note that the individual authors hold copyright for their papers. You must seek permission to reproduce their papers directly from the authors. The views expressed in these papers are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Library of Australia.
Mark Cranfield
Oral History: Why does it Matter?
Mark Cranfield joined the National Library in 1981 and has held the
position of Chief Oral History Officer since 1984. He regularly represents
the National Library at conferences and seminars and has been involved in
the design, administration and management of a wide range of projects in
oral history and folklore at the national level.
Diana Giese
Post-war Chinese Australians Oral
History Project
Diana Giese is organising the post-war Chinese Australians oral history
project for the National Library. In 1995 the Library published Beyond
Chinatown, a book on the Top End Chinese. Her new book is Astronauts,
Lost Souls and Dragons from the University of Queensland Press (UQP).
She produces ABC radio programs, has published widely, and has addressed
audiences in Darwin, Sydney, Melbourne, Bendigo, Cairns, Townsville and
Perth.
Peter Read
Seven Years On Project
Peter Read is one of the best-known and most influential oral historians
in Australia. He has worked extensively in the area of Aboriginal history,
and his many publications include Long Time, Olden Time, and A
Hundred Years War. Peter Read is also working on how non-Aboriginal
Australians 'belong' to the country. His most recent book, Returning
to Nothing: Reflections on the Meaning of Lost Places, was published
by Cambridge University Press in 1996. Since 1995 Peter Read has been
working with Jackie Huggins on their joint project Seven Years On:
Interviews with Emerged/Emerging Aboriginal Leaders.
Michelle Potter
Oral History: How is it Different?
Michelle Potter has a long standing interest in oral history, which
developed while she was Esso Research Fellow in the Performing Arts at the
National Library of Australia between 1988 and 1990. Since then she has
been a contract oral history interviewer for the National Library and has
continued to specialise in the performing arts with particular emphasis on
dance. Her forthcoming book, A Passion for Dance, is a collection of
edited interviews recorded for the National Library with choreographers
and artistic directors of Australia dance companies. To be published by
the National Library, it will appear mid-1997.
Robin Hughes
Asking Questions: The Making of the Archival Collection and
Television Series Australian Biography and the Book Australian
Lives.
Robin Hughes is an independent film-maker, broadcaster and writer, and
is also Chair of the Council of the Australian Film Television and Radio
School. She has worked for the BBC, the ABC and commercial television, and
from 1985 to 1989 was Head of Film Australia. She now works independently
on her own productions. Author of Australian Lives, a collection
of interviews with twentieth-century Australians, published in 1996 by
Harper Collins, she is currently producing and directing, with film-maker
Linda Kruger, the Australian Biography series. The Biography
series is produced by Film Australia as an archival project from which
half-hour versions are made and shown on SBS.
Ragbir Bhathal
Astronomers and Women Scientists
Dr Ragbir Bhathal is a physicist, writer and researcher of Australian
studies in science, physics and astronomy. He is chairman of the SETI
Australia Centre at the University of Western Sydney Macarthur, where he
teaches. Dr Bhathal emerged as an oral historian with the publication
Australian Astronomers in 1996,
based on interviews recorded for the National Library's collections. He is
currently conducting interviews with outstanding women scientists.
Barry York
Oral History and Ethnic History
Barry York, a Harold White Fellow at the National Library, is currently
working on a project titled 'Big Chief Little Wolf: folklore, folk-heroes
and professional wrestling in Australia'. Barry York has been an
interviewer for the Library's Oral History Collection since 1988. He has
recorded interviews with Maltese and Polish migrants. He has written
extensively on Australian multiculturalism and oral history and edited
ANU's Studies in Australian Ethnic History series and the
Maltese-Australian Studies series.
Jackie Huggins
Seven Years On Project
Jackie Huggins is an historian and author from Brisbane. Her freelance
work spans academia, bureaucracy and community. Her first book Auntie
Rita, a biography of her late mother, was published in 1994 and is now
being reprinted. She has written numerous journal and book articles, and a
collection of her essays on history, racism and colonialism will be
published in 1998 by UQP. She is a judge of the David Uniapon Award for
Indigenous Writers. Since 1995 she has been working with Peter Read on
their joint project Seven Years On: Interviews with Emerged/Emerging
Aboriginal Leaders.
Daniel Connell
Oral History: A Complementary Source
not a Competing Source
Daniel Connell worked for the ABC Social History Unit for many years. He
contributed to numerous radio documentaries, including Taim Bilong
Masta and produced The Home Front. His extensive recordings of
former cabinet minister Clyde Cameron were released as a book The Confessions
of Clyde Cameron. He has worked for the National Library as a
specialist interviewer for 10 years.
Online Discussion
All visitors to the online Voices and Memory seminar are encouraged to offer comments, to ask questions, to contribute to ongoing discussion, and to offer their own experiences and insights. Moderated contributions will be archived below. Email your contributions to Michelle Hetherington, Education Officer at the National Library of Australia -mhetheri@nla.gov.au .
If you find other sites on the World Wide Web that deal with the topic of oral history, please let us know.
Discussion archive coming soon.
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