Description
Keynote:Can there be any greater privilege as an oral historian than sitting with a narrator as they unfurl themselves and their life experiences with us? Can there be anything more valuable than a moment of self-understanding, or of reappraisal, of something long felt, newly articulated? From its roots in foregrounding marginalised and silenced voices, oral history has provided an unparalleled historical research methodology through which to explore and express identity, both individual and collective. As a queer oral historian, I am deeply aware of how much is at stake and just how much can be gained through the identity work that oral history not only makes space for but centres. In this talk I delve into the ways in which identity is constructed and co-created in the oral history interview. But identity work and its potential power are not limited to the narrator. Having dedicated much of my career to being an ‘insider interviewer’, researching a community of which I am a member, oral history has also been a way for me to understand the ‘we’ in order to understand the ‘I’. So, in this talk I also draw attention to the role of identity work for the interviewer, whatever the relationship to their research might be. To do so, I also propose we think about the ways in which ‘oral historian’ is an identity itself and explore what that recognition can teach us about our practice. Drawing on interviews undertaken as part of my current book project on butch lesbian and queer identity, I examine moments of individual self-articulation and validation, as well as instances of mutual recognition, where a collective identity was formed and mobilised between myself and the narrator.
| Period | 2024 |
|---|---|
| Event title | OHNI annual conference: Identity |
| Event type | Conference |
| Location | Derry, United KingdomShow on map |
| Degree of Recognition | International |