Love at the Threshold of War and Migration

2020 ◽  
pp. 163-183
Author(s):  
Sonia Cancian
Keyword(s):  
Oral History ◽  
Personal Narratives ◽  
Boarding School ◽  
The World ◽  
Mother And Daughter ◽  
Home Village ◽  
And Migration ◽  
Oral History Interviews ◽  
Historical Moment ◽  
Young Life

In 1946, as the dust began to settle from the brutalities and destruction of war, Maria’s young life was set in motion. Her departure from her home village in Southern Italy to a boarding school in Umbria—followed by subsequent moves within Italy, and later to Canada—signaled a mobilization that would, in time, transform her notions of love, home, and family. Love and separation form the nexus of analysis in this chapter on love and migration. Through narratives of memory, silence, loss, regret, and resilience, a transnational love between a mother and daughter is unraveled. Drawing from a series of oral history interviews and a lifetime of conversations, this chapter examines the world of tensions and dynamics of distant love between a mother and her daughter. It shows how love was a powerful driver of migration and legitimizer of separation between mother and daughter in a historical moment of severe austerity in Italy. An auto/biographical, personal narratives approach is employed to explore questions on love and distance emerging in the contexts of war and migration in the mid-twentieth century.

Mülteci olmak: Mersin’de yaşayan Filistinli mültecilerin göç hikâyeleri

2016 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 200-224
Author(s):  
Bilge Deniz Çatak
Keyword(s):  
Oral History ◽  
Daily Life ◽  
Palestinian Refugees ◽  
Emotional Bonds ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
Oral History Interviews ◽  
Refugee Experience

Filistin tarihinde yaşanan 1948 ve 1967 savaşları, binlerce Filistinlinin başka ülkelere göç etmesine neden olmuştur. Günümüzde, dünya genelinde yaşayan Filistinli mülteci sayısının beş milyonu aştığı tahmin edilmektedir. Ülkelerine geri dönemeyen Filistinlilerin mültecilik deneyimleri uzun bir geçmişe sahiptir ve köklerinden koparılma duygusu ile iç içe geçmiştir. Mersin’de bulunan Filistinlilerin zorunlu olarak çıktıkları göç yollarında yaşadıklarının ve mülteci olarak günlük hayatta karşılaştıkları zorlukların Filistinli kimlikleri üzerindeki etkisi sözlü tarih yöntemi ile incelenmiştir. Farklı kuşaklardan sekiz Filistinli mülteci ile yapılan görüşmelerde, dünyanın farklı bölgelerinde mülteci olarak yaşama deneyiminin, Filistinlilerin ulusal bağlılıklarına zarar vermediği görülmüştür. Filistin, mültecilerin yaşamlarında gelenekler, değerler ve duygusal bağlar ile devam etmektedir. Mültecilerin Filistin’den ayrılırken yanlarına aldıkları anahtar, tapu ve toprak gibi nesnelerin saklanıyor olması, Filistin’e olan bağlılığın devam ettiğinin işaretlerinden biridir.ABSTRACT IN ENGLISHPalestinian refugees’ lives in MersinIn the history of Palestine, 1948 and 1967 wars have caused fleeing of thousands of Palestinians to other countries. At the present time, its estimated that the number of Palestinian refugees worldwide exceeds five million. The refugee experience of Palestinians who can not return their homeland has a long history and intertwine with feeling of deracination. Oral history interviews were conducted on the effects of the displacement and struggles of daily life as a refugee on the identity of Palestinians who have been living in Mersin (city of Turkey). After interviews were conducted with eight refugees from different generations concluded that being a refugee in the various parts of the world have not destroyed the national entity of the Palestinians. Palestine has preserved in refugees’ life with its traditions, its values, and its emotional bonds. Keeping keys, deeds and soil which they took with them when they departed from Palestine, proving their belonging to Palestine.

'We got the power!' The political potential of street choirs

Soundings ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 73 (73) ◽  
pp. 129-143
Author(s):  
Campaign Choirs Writing Collective
Keyword(s):  
Action Research ◽  
Participatory Action Research ◽  
Oral History ◽  
Research Programme ◽  
Emotional Engagement ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Struggle ◽  
Participatory Action ◽  
The World ◽  
Oral History Interviews

Song has the power to express a social truth and is consistently employed in actions across the world in solidarity with political struggle. This article discusses the campaigning work of the Campaign Choirs Network, a UK network of radical political choirs, whose story is founded on diverse solidarities and a commitment to singing as a means of emotional engagement and pedagogy. The network has conducted a participatory action research programme, including oral history interviews with 42 members of 11 street choirs, exploring members' life-course activism and their utopian imaginaries. As one aspect of their research, the authors sought to more fully understand the emotions that song and singing release, and the connections that can then be made between people – in order to find out more about the nature of the power of song and the political possibilities of such connections. Drawing extensively on the interviews, this article discusses the political and pedagogic possibilities of the emotions released through singing.

Conclusion

2019 ◽  
pp. 217-222
Author(s):  
Rachel F. Seidman
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Oral History ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Feminist Activism ◽  
Look Back ◽  
The World ◽  
Use Of The Internet ◽  
Oral History Interviews ◽  
Successes And Challenges ◽  
Political Actions

Seidman reflects on what has changed since 2012, when Who Needs Feminism launched, and argues that the year can be seen as a turning point in feminist activism, particularly around the use of the internet and social media. She discusses the changing political context since she finished interviewing in the summer of 2016, with the election of Donald Trump. She argues that the interviews help explain the success of the Women’s March on Washington and of the #MeToo movement, by highlighting the long years of organizing and the connections that had been made across organizations and causes, in part inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement. The oral history interviews collected here allow us to look back on a particular moment in time and to reflect on how individual women’s personal decisions and political actions intertwine with the contexts in which they happen—familial, social, political, global. They show how individuals contribute to shaping the world around them. They also help us see in detail how a movement grows; it does not simply emerge whole cloth from a particular event but builds on the connections, successes, and challenges of those who were active before.

Shifting Memories

2020 ◽  
Vol 33 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 157-189
Author(s):  
Wai Yin Christina Wong
Keyword(s):  
Oral History ◽  
National Committee ◽  
First Year ◽  
Young Women's Christian Association ◽  
Republic Of China ◽  
The World ◽  
The Republic Of China ◽  
The Republic ◽  
Oral History Interviews ◽  
General Secretary

Abstract Five years after the establishment of the World Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA) in 1894 under the influence of the Protestant evangelical movement the Chinese YWCA national committee was founded in 1899. Shortly after the overthrow of the Manchu Empire, the Canton YWCA was founded in 1912, the first year of the Republic of China. In this study I examine three oral history interviews with former YWCA staff, supplemented by the written recollections of a former general secretary and other scarce materials to reconstruct the fragmented work of the Canton YWCA in the 1940s. In the conclusion, I discuss how their memories have shifted according to their contingent “present” identities in different periods of time, and how they are dependent on individual concerns, institutional affiliations and socio-political contexts.

“Muscle”Yekkes? Multiple German-Jewish Masculinities in Palestine and Israel after 1933

2018 ◽  
Vol 51 (3) ◽  
pp. 466-487
Author(s):  
Patrick Farges
Keyword(s):  
Oral History ◽  
Personal Narratives ◽  
British Mandate ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Body Postures ◽  
Gendered Identities ◽  
Racial Issues ◽  
German Speaking ◽  
German Jewish ◽  
Oral History Interviews

AbstractIn the 1930s and 1940s, nearly ninety thousand German-speaking Jews found refuge in the British Mandate of Palestine. While scholars have stressed the so-calledYekkes’intellectual and cultural contribution to the making of the Jewish nation, their social and gendered lifeworlds still need to be explored. This article, which is centered on the generation of those born between 1910 and 1925, explores an ongoing interest in German-Jewish multiple masculinities. It is based on personal narratives, including some 150 oral history interviews conducted in the early 1990s with German-speaking men and women in Israel. By focusing on gender and masculinities, it sheds new light on social, generational, and racial issues in Mandatory Palestine and Israel. The article presents an investigation of the lives, experiences, and gendered identities of young emigrants from Nazi Europe who had partly been socialized in Europe, and were then forced to adjust to a different sociey and culture after migration. This involved adopting new forms of sociability, learning new body postures and gestures, as well as incorporating new habits—which, together, formed a cultural repertoire for how to behave as a “New Hebrew.”

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