Makers and Keepers: Two Lives, through Photographs

2021 ◽  
Vol 56 (3) ◽  
pp. 292-319
Author(s):  
Kelann Currie-Williams
Keyword(s):  
Black Women ◽  
Oral History ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Photographic Images ◽  
Black And White ◽  
Oral Testimony ◽  
Relational Qualities ◽  
Oral History Interview ◽  
Oral History Interviews ◽  
The City

Looking through the pages of family photo albums or the folders of photographic archival fonds can only be described as holding history in your hands. Whether it is in the form of colour or black and white prints, negatives, or slides, these photo-objects carry histories of lives lived that go beyond their frames. Focusing on a set of oral history interviews conducted with two Black women living in Montréal — a community photographer or image “maker” who was most active during the 1970s–1990s and a photo-collector or “keeper” who is currently active in preserving and sharing photographs for her church and wider communities within the city — this article engages with how the interweaving of photography and oral history gives us a rich way to experience the histories of Black social life in Montréal. Photo-led oral history interviews are sites for fruitful and in-depth conversation, providing interviewee and interviewer alike with the possibility of coming into encounter with everyday or minor histories that are too often overlooked. Moreover, this article is driven by a set entwined questions: How does oral testimony open up additional avenues for sharing the events of the past that have been captured through photographic images? What affective and relational qualities do photographs possess and how, in turn, do these qualities transform the space of the oral history interview? And, most urgently, why was photography used by Black Montréalers as a tool and a practice to remember and insist upon their collective presence?

scholarly journals The "Art" of the Right to the City: Interdisciplinary Teaching and Learning in Pointe-St-Charles

2016 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 387-418 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathleen Vaughan ◽  
Emanuelle Dufour ◽  
Cynthia Hammond
Keyword(s):  
Community Engagement ◽  
Oral History ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Right To The City ◽  
Interdisciplinary Teaching ◽  
Concordia University ◽  
The Right ◽  
Oral History Interview ◽  
The City ◽  
Teaching Initiative

What does it mean for artists within academia to make art, teach and learn with and in community, in particular the challenged and challenging Montreal neighborhood of Pointe-St-Charles? This article addresses community engagement in "The Point" from the perspectives of a doctoral student and two instructors involved in "The Right to the City" (TRTC), a three-year, interdisciplinary, placed-based teaching initiative of Concordia University (Montreal). Showcasing the student’s graphic novella, based on the oral history interview of a longtime resident, this article affirms the importance of reciprocity—learning with rather than about—within academic and artistic outreach.

Speaking to the ‘Hard Men’: Masculinities, Violence and Youth Gangs in Glasgow, c. 1965–75

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Angela Bartie ◽  
Alistair Fraser
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
Identity Formation ◽  
Oral History ◽  
Lived Experiences ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Youth Gangs ◽  
Masculine Identity ◽  
Popular Representations ◽  
Oral History Interviews ◽  
The City

This chapter unites perspectives from history and sociology in excavating the lived experiences of everyday masculinities and violence that lie behind the persistent image of the Glasgow ‘hard man’, while also interrogating popular representations of the ‘hard city’. Drawing on oral history interviews with individuals involved in violent territorialism – specifically through street-based ‘gangs’ of young men – c. 1965-1975, it contrasts popular representations of the Glasgow ‘hard man’ with the lived experiences of those living and working in the city at that time. Focusing specifically on Easterhouse, it highlights the prominence of ‘the street’ in narrative accounts of masculine identity formation for young working-class men and links this to the specific social, cultural and economic composition of the locale. Overall, it argues that such ‘street’ masculinities should be understood in historical context, recognising the influence of local cultures of machismo on the persistence of forms of masculine identity.

scholarly journals The Chinese Jamaican Oral History Project

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Clarkson Fisher
Keyword(s):  
Oral History ◽  
Diverse Range ◽  
Online Archive ◽  
Digital Stories ◽  
Oral History Interview ◽  
Oral History Interviews

The Chinese Jamaican Oral History Project is an initiative that aims to record and preserve memories and stories from the Chinese Jamaican community in Toronto. Its two distinct components are: (1) an online archive of audio-recorded oral history interviews, narrator portraits, and other images; and (2) an exhibition made from the contents of that archive. Specifically, the exhibition is comprised of twelve digital stories -- one for each of the narrators who has participated in the project so far. In every case, a soundbite has been selected to represent the complete oral history interview (which is archived online in full). Together with the images, these voices tell a story of the Chinese Jamaican community in Toronto, while also underscoring the diverse range of individual experiences within it.

scholarly journals The Chinese Jamaican Oral History Project

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Clarkson Fisher
Keyword(s):  
Oral History ◽  
Diverse Range ◽  
Online Archive ◽  
Digital Stories ◽  
Oral History Interview ◽  
Oral History Interviews

The Chinese Jamaican Oral History Project is an initiative that aims to record and preserve memories and stories from the Chinese Jamaican community in Toronto. Its two distinct components are: (1) an online archive of audio-recorded oral history interviews, narrator portraits, and other images; and (2) an exhibition made from the contents of that archive. Specifically, the exhibition is comprised of twelve digital stories -- one for each of the narrators who has participated in the project so far. In every case, a soundbite has been selected to represent the complete oral history interview (which is archived online in full). Together with the images, these voices tell a story of the Chinese Jamaican community in Toronto, while also underscoring the diverse range of individual experiences within it.

scholarly journals ‘I Want Them to Learn about Israel and the Holidays’: Jewish Israeli Mothers in Early-Twenty-First-Century Britain

2016 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 80-94 ◽  
Author(s):  
Angela Davis
Keyword(s):  
Social Network ◽  
Oral History ◽  
Social Life ◽  
First Century ◽  
Jewish State ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
Early Twenty ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
Oral History Interviews

Research has shown that the presence of children in the Jewish Israeli emigrant family intensifies their ambivalence about living abroad, but encourages greater involvement with fellow Israelis as they seek to transmit a Jewish Israeli identity and maintain their children’s attachment to the Jewish state. This article explores this assumption by focusing on the experiences of mothering of a group of Israeli emigrants in Britain. Based on twelve oral history interviews, it considers the issues of child socialisation and the mothers’ own social life. It traces how the women created a social network within which to mother and how they tried to ensure their children preserved a Jewish Israeli identity. The article also seeks to question how parenting abroad led the interviewees to embrace cultural and religious traditions in new ways.

scholarly journals Invisible Pathways

2019 ◽  
Vol 41 (2) ◽  
pp. 190-217
Author(s):  
Kristyn Scorsone
Keyword(s):  
Black Women ◽  
Oral History ◽  
Public History ◽  
Business Practices ◽  
Cultural Institutions ◽  
Marginalized Communities ◽  
Shared Authority ◽  
Black Lesbians ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The City

Using oral history research under the direction of the Queer Newark Oral History Project, this essay explores how contemporary black lesbian entrepreneurs in the city of Newark, New Jersey, are engaged in entrepreneurial practices that resist patterns of gentrification. I argue for expanding our definition of public history to account for the business practices and social structures that queer black women in Newark are erecting as a part of their survival. These serve to pave the way for the preservation of their culture, enable them to collaborate with community in shared authority, and present queer black women’s knowledge and history to the wider public. By expanding the definition of what constitutes a public historian, we acknowledge the power of black lesbians as producers of historical knowledge and create new access points for shared inquiry with various marginalized communities that reach beyond academia and cultural institutions.

The Schedule of Reserved Occupations, Oral History and Other Methodologies

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alison Chand
Keyword(s):  
Oral History ◽  
Primary Source ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Historical Research ◽  
World War ◽  
Oral Testimony ◽  
Materials Used ◽  
Oral History Interviews ◽  
Second World ◽  
Source Materials

This chapter begins by discussing important theories of masculinity underlying the arguments in the book, before defining the policy of reservation in Second World War Britain and its implications. The geographical boundaries of the study are also defined here, with the areas understood as being incorporated into ‘Glasgow’ and ‘Clydeside’ discussed. The chapter also defines the notions of ‘lived’ and ‘imagined’ subjectivities, which centrally underpin the arguments made in the book, before considering the methodologies used in conducting the research involved, primarily oral history. The chapter moves on to look at uses of oral testimonies in previous historical research before examining the different kinds of oral testimony used for this study, including those held in existing oral history archives and newly conducted oral history interviews. Finally, the chapter examines other primary source materials used in this research, including cultural materials such as newspapers, novels and films.

The visual at work: oral history and institutional photographs

Hot Metal ◽  
2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jesse Adams Stein
Keyword(s):  
Oral History ◽  
Visual Stimuli ◽  
Oral Histories ◽  
Complex Interplay ◽  
Interview Process ◽  
Working Lives ◽  
Oral Testimony ◽  
Workplace Practices ◽  
Oral History Interview

This chapter explores the complex interplay of memory and meaning that emerges when using oral histories and institutional photographs, in the interview itself and in the stages of interpretation. It engages with existing discourse in oral history, particularly in relation to the links between oral testimony and visual stimuli. In doing so, it broadens existing discussions in oral history to include the use of institutional photographs in the interview process, rather than personal or family images (which has often been the focus of previous research in this area). While institutional photographs do not necessarily show the ‘reality’ of workplace practices, such images can reveal some of the ways that institutions sought to represent themselves officially. The use of institutional photographs during the oral history interview can provide insights into the disjuncture between bureaucratic representations of an organisation and former employees’ detailed recollections of tangible details related to their working lives.

“We Just Thought We Were Superhuman”: An Oral History of Noise and Piecework in Paisley’s Thread Mills

2020 ◽  
Vol 119 (1) ◽  
pp. 173-196
Author(s):  
William Burns
Keyword(s):  
Oral History ◽  
Industrial Process ◽  
Later Life ◽  
Factory Workers ◽  
Repetitive Movements ◽  
Work Health ◽  
Oral Testimony ◽  
History Of ◽  
Oral History Interviews

Paisley, in the West of Scotland, was once the world capital of industrial thread making. Existing scholarship on the thread works has focused on the “great men” of the mill-owning Coats and Clark families, neglecting the experience of female factory workers. This article explores the hidden history of the experience of work-induced illness and disability over the long term, from the perspective of women who worked in Paisley’s thread mills. It draws upon extant oral history interviews and 13 new interviews with former millworkers. There is a particular focus on two work-health interactions: first, repeated exposure to the constant roar of machinery, which resulted in hearing loss; second, piecework - compelling women to work at speed and to engage in repetitive movements and awkward postures in order to increase their earnings - which had a debilitating effect on their joints and limbs in later life. This article examines oral testimony of the long-term health implications for Paisley’s female thread workers and reveals that women engaged in risky work practices not only as victims of the industrial process but with agency in their desire to earn increased wages. This agency was framed within the inevitability of the absorption of risk, and curtailed by mechanical, social and financial factors.

Women out of Place? A Micro-historical Perspective on the Black Feminist Movement in Salvador da Bahia, Brazil

2007 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-80 ◽  
Author(s):  
CECILIA MCCALLUM
Keyword(s):  
Black Women ◽  
Affirmative Action ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
Historical Perspective ◽  
Politics Of Identity ◽  
Black Feminist ◽  
Salvador Da Bahia ◽  
Black Feminists ◽  
Black And White ◽  
The City

In Brazil, black women are symbolically and practically associated with domestic work. The article examines feminist responses to black women's place in the socio-economic hierarchy of the city of Salvador, Bahia. These include proposals to introduce affirmative action and a ‘politics of presence’, involving the election of black women to represent the city's black female constituency. It describes the racial dynamics at work between black and white feminists in Bahia, signalling the contradictory tendencies that structure their relationship. Arguing against the view that a ‘politics of identity’ necessarily supports a new essentialism of race or culture, the article describes the diverse ideological and political influences upon the ideas and proposals of Bahian feminists. Black feminists construct racial difference as experiential and structural in origin. They adapt academic concepts and language in order to discuss their own lives and the specific social and cultural context of Salvador. The ethnographic and micro-historical perspective adopted here provides insight into ‘native’ understandings of affirmative action and a ‘politics of presence’ and suggests that criticisms of these measures on the grounds that they represent imported, non-Brazilian views of race are misplaced.

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