One of the projects I am personally extremely interested in is collecting oral histories to show us how gender roles/identities, feelings towards sexuality (both preference and the existence of it), and overall culture changes overtime. I really want to use this method in my dissertation, eventually, to compare how HIV/AIDS shaped African American’s perception of gender, sexuality and culture now VS. the 1980s during the height of the crisis.
I would be super interested in talking about just this or opening up to talking about the importance of oral history and self-written works by the community are to shaping the “real” or “complete” history.
Some questions I would love to answer:
What are the best ways to collect oral histories?
What can they be used for in something like a written dissertation?
What are the downsides of using stories that have been shared with me and how can I minimize them?
Sorry, I forgot my technology piece: the best works I have seen to do this have been video. HOWEVER, video has many downfalls (such as it can’t be wholly described in writing) – how can we blend the tried and true method in academia with the captivation of a video?
Also – what are the best way to collect these histories AND keep them accessible/alive in the future. A lot of the issue with video is that it can only be seen if someone plays it, and it can only be played if we know it exists..
I wanted to share this resource in case folks aren’t aware of it.
lgbtqdigitalcollaboratory.org/oral-history-hub/
This is an incredible project on that list:
queer.newark.rutgers.edu/
So sorry to miss this year’s (un)conference.