Read the flyer
You will examine different approaches to oral history including those based upon Mātauranga Māori/Kaupapa Māori and learn the steps required to construct a methodologically robust, ethical oral history research proposal. As you progress, you will discuss how to frame the research goals, find the interview cohort, choose an interview format, and contextualise your material.
By the end of the course you will have learned about different research methods and formulated a draft oral history research proposal. There will also be the opportunity to discuss possible forms of publication.
Scholarship applications close Monday 15 July
Notification of decision Monday 29 July
Course Objectives:
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Formulate an oral history research proposal
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Learn about different research methods and modes of analysis
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Be introduced to Mātauranga Māori/Kaupapa Māori approaches to oral history
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Consider the relationship between memory and history
Recommended Reading List:
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Robert Perks and Alistair Thomson, eds, The Oral History Reader, 2nd ed (Routledge, 2006).
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Anna Green and Megan Hutching, eds, Remembering: Writing Oral History (Auckland University Press, 2004).
Course Outline:
DAY ONE
1. Introduction: What do we know about memory/remembering?
2. What is oral history? Approaches and debates
3. Mātauranga Māori/Kaupapa Māori approaches to oral history
4. Framing the purpose and goals of your oral history project
5. Who do I want to interview and how do I find them?
6. Workshop exercise: drafting part one of proposal
DAY TWO
7. The recorded interview and interview questions
8. Ethics: agreement and consent
9. Analysis: social and cultural historical context
10. Analysis: narrative form
11. The relationship between memory and history
12. Workshop exercise: finalizing your oral history project proposal
Facilitators:
The course will be collaboratively taught by Associate Professor Anna Green, Stout Research Centre; Dr Arini Loader History programme, Victoria University of Wellington; and public historian Megan Hutching.
nna GreenAssociate Professor Anna Green is a member of the Stout Research Centre in New Zealand Studies at Victoria University of Wellington. Oral history and the relationship between memory and history have been at the centre of her research and publications, with a focus upon working lives and communities, environmental disaster, and the family. Her current Marsden researc_h project on Pākehā intergenerational family memory is entitled ‘The Missing Link’.
Arini Loader
Dr Arini Loader is a lecturer in the School of History, Philosophy, Political Science and International Relations at Victoria University of Wellington. She specialises in the history of Aotearoa New Zealand. Her current research projects include a collaborative project with Dr Michael Ross on a collection of waiata (song) texts written by Māori taken prisoner following the battle of Rangiriri in the New Zealand Wars.
M
egan Hutching
Megan Hutching is a freelance historian and oral historian with over 25 years’ experience in these fields. Her recent oral history work includes commissioned oral history projects for the New Zealand Association of Women Judges, and Engineering NZ, as well as a number of life history interviews for families. Personal oral history projects include the Auckland harbour bridge, and the domestic lives of New Zealand women in the mid-twentieth century.