Oral History for Social Change
Groundswell is a dynamic network of oral historians, activists, cultural workers, community organizers, and documentary artists.
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.
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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.
Read MoreApril'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.
Read MoreWhat 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.
Read MoreIn 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.
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Check out the notes from our recent PSN on Intergenerational Storytelling!
Read MoreDarryl 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.
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Here are 10 Groundswell network highlights from 2015, true to oral history form.
Read Moren 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!):
Read MoreAn 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.
Read MoreBlack 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.
Read MoreThis 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.
Read MoreIn this PSN chat, we will discuss the challenges of sustaining the long-term work of oral history when working with, or being, volunteers.
Read MoreIn 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.
Read MoreWe'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!
Read MoreGroundswell needs a logo. Something evocative (even provocative, perhaps). Something that says: oral history. social justice. a listening revolution. Might be edgy, might be thoughtful...
Read MoreIn 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.
Read MoreBecome an Official Sponsor for Groundswell's 2015: Oral History for Movement Building Network Gathering, June 17-18th, Detroit, MI!
Read MoreJoin 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)!
Read MoreIn this PSN chat we will share and brainstorm strategies for using oral history to document movements against police brutality and the experiences of the families and communities impacted by police brutality. Here, we can discuss different strategies for involving community members in this oral history work, supporting movements on the ground, and publicizing patterns of police brutality through alternative media.
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