GROUNDSWELL

Oral History for Social Change

Groundswell is a dynamic network of oral historians, activists, cultural workers, community organizers, and documentary artists.

Forty Blocks: The East Garfield Park Oral History Project

May 09, 2016 by Sarah Loose

Before you read further, please google the phrase East Garfield Park. Okay, aside from the ubiquitous Wiki entry, what did you find? Our guess is you saw mostly hits that involved crime and gentrification in some way. The mainstream dominant media portrays this community in the heart of Chicago’s West Side as crime ridden, poverty stricken, and little else. East Garfield Park organizations and residents strive to rewrite this narrative.

Narratives of Police Violence, Navigating the Work, and Building Family: The Forced Trajectory Project

January 28, 2016 by Sarah Loose

The Forced Trajectory Project (FTP) is a long-term multimedia project that documents the effects of police violence on communities, beginning with families whose loved ones have been murdered by police.

Announcing Spring PSN Lineup and Two New PSN Initiatives!

January 15, 2016 by Michael Falco

After several years of hosting Practitioner Support Network Video Chats, we are excited to announce that we are starting two new PSN initiatives in 2016: PSN Problem Solvers and PSN One-to-Ones.

APRIL PSN: Storytelling the Environment: How can we use stories to help understand and protect the natural world?

January 15, 2016 by Michael Falco

April's PSN Video Chat aims to develop strategies for utilizing storytelling to affect positive change in the natural world and to emphasize the human race's responsibility to our planet. This chat will examine the various roles narrative can play in environmental activism, from how storytellers can convey complex scientific knowledge to the general public to how personal storytelling can be used to affect public policy.

MARCH PSN: Success Stories: From Oral History to Social Change

January 15, 2016 by Michael Falco in Civil Rights, Anti-Oppression, Class Ethnicity & Race, Gender

What does it take to move from oral history to actual change? As practitioners seeking to engage oral history as a method for not only documenting, but actively contributing to social change, we often talk a lot about our struggles. But we also need to celebrate and learn from our victories! In this special PSN video chat, we invite three practitioners to share how they’ve successfully engaged oral history in service of social justice.

FEBRUARY PSN: Interviewing About the Body

January 15, 2016 by Michael Falco in Illness and Disability, Anti-Oppression, Gender, Class Ethnicity & Race

In this Practitioner Support Network video chat, we will discuss the potential and special challenges of interviewing about the body, and will develop strategies for interviews focused on embodied experience such as breastfeeding, living with a disability, being transgender, or dancing as well as strategies for keeping the body in focus in all of our work.

Reportback: PSN on Intergenerational Storytelling

January 15, 2016 by Michael Falco

Check out the notes from our recent PSN on Intergenerational Storytelling!

Mapping Healing, Honoring the Humanity in Story Telling: The Maps of Healing Project

December 13, 2015 by Sarah Loose

Darryl B’s voice is clear and confident. ‘Today I would like to say that I am an American proud Black Gay man, and those are how I identify myself.” The audio then leads us into Darryl telling how his mother’s activism formed him into the person that he is today. Next, he tells the story of being unwarrantedly banned from a club in Greensboro and subsequently harassed, physically attacked, and arrested by police officers. “I wonder if my skin color were different, how would that situation have gone?” he reflects.

ReMix: Groundswell's Top 10 From 2015!

December 04, 2015 by Sarah Loose

Here are 10 Groundswell network highlights from 2015, true to oral history form.

PSN Reportback: Strategies to Maintain the Momentum in Volunteer-Run Oral History Projects

November 23, 2015 by Michael Falco

n our November PSN, a group of practitioners came together to develop strategies to maintain the momentum in volunteer-powered, and volunteer-led, oral history projects. You can read the full minutes here, and here are a few of our favorite tools, organized by each phase of a project (with thanks to Alice Kovacik for the great notes!):

December PSN Now Open!

November 23, 2015 by Sarah Loose

An intergenerational framework in oral histories can be useful to both parties involved--the interviewer/youth can learn valuable lessons from the person being interviewed, while the interviewee/elder can find it very fulfilling to pass their stories down to the next generation. This can particularly be useful in activist groups to form bonds and build community that might otherwise be fractured by generational differences.

centering: Naimah Johnson

November 10, 2015 by Sarah Loose

Black Women's Blueprint is using oral history interviews and oral testimony as the basis for a Spring 2016 Black Women's Truth and Reconciliation Commission, focusing on rape and sexual assault against Black women in the United States. In this interview, Naimah describes Black Women's Blueprint's approach to interviewing victims and survivors, and reflects on what it means, in practice, to respect, honor, and be accountable to the women they interview - at all points in the process.

PSN Reportback: Lost in Translation? Oral History Across Languages

November 09, 2015 by Michael Falco in Class Ethnicity & Race, Anti-Oppression, Civil Rights

This reportback shares our thoughts on what it might look like to bring a language justice perspective to oral history practice. The notion of “language justice” recognizes that language is power. Language can be both a tool of domination and oppression as well as a powerful means for facilitating inclusive democracy and cross-community movement building and learning. Interviewing and sharing oral histories across languages presents unique opportunities and challenges. In this chat, we explored participants’ experiences, questions and strategies around navigating the technical and ethical issues that arise in doing oral history in bilingual and multilingual environments.

NOVEMBER PSN: How can we maintain the momentum in volunteer-run oral history projects?

October 07, 2015 by Michael Falco

In this PSN chat, we will discuss the challenges of sustaining the long-term work of oral history when working with, or being, volunteers.

OCTOBER PSN: Lost in Translation?: Oral history across languages

October 07, 2015 by Sarah Loose in Class Ethnicity & Race

In this chat, we’ll explore participants’ experiences, questions and strategies around navigating the technical and ethical issues that arise in doing oral history in bilingual and multilingual environments. Together, we’ll consider what it might look like to bring a language justice perspective to oral history practice.

Welcome Amaka & Maggie!

September 11, 2015 by Sarah Loose

We're thrilled to introduce you to two new members of our Groundswell team. Amaka Okechukwu (a core member of our GS2015 planning team this past year) will be joining Sarah Loose as one of our Co-Coordinators and Maggie Von Vogt has come on board as Groundswell's new Blog Coordinator!

Calling all Visual Artists and Graphic Designers!

August 12, 2015 by Sarah Loose

Groundswell needs a logo. Something evocative (even provocative, perhaps). Something that says: oral history. social justice. a listening revolution. Might be edgy, might be thoughtful...

centering: Amy Starecheski

July 08, 2015 by Sarah Loose

In this interview, Amy describes how she incorporates an anti-oppression framework into both her teaching, as a professor of Columbia's Masters program in Oral History, as well as her own projects. In particular, she describes the importance of engaging in a process of ongoing consent and the interviewer's responsibility to reflect on and gauge their power and privilege in an interviewer/interviewee dynamic.

GS2015 Sponsors

March 20, 2015 by Sarah Loose

Become an Official Sponsor for Groundswell's 2015: Oral History for Movement Building Network Gathering, June 17-18th, Detroit, MI!

Listening Party and Oral History Workshop, Portland, Ore.

March 10, 2015 by Sarah Loose

Join Groundswell Oregon on Tuesday, April 7th at the University of Oregon Turnbull Center in Portland, OR for a social justice oral history listening party - Listen Hard: Stories of Resistance and Resilience (and a special "Democratizing the Voice of History" pre-workshop on using a smartphone to capture oral history)!