Beyond testimony and trauma : oral history in the aftermath of mass violence / edited by Steven High.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

High, Steven C., editor.

Series:

Shared (Series)

Shared, oral and public history

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Montreal Life Stories Project.

Oral history.

Oral biography.

Victims.

Survival.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (368 p.)

Distribution:

Ottawa, Ontario : Canadian Electronic Library, 2015

Place of Publication:

Vancouver [British Columbia] : UBC Press, [2015]

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Survivors of terrible events are often portrayed as unsung heroes or tragic victims but rarely as complex human beings whose lives extend beyond the stories they have told. Beyond Testimony and Trauma considers other ways to engage with survivors and their accounts based on insights gained from long-term oral history projects in a variety of contexts, including factory closures, industrial injury, eugenics and forced sterilization, the Holocaust, genocide in Rwanda and Cambodia, Argentinian torture camps, the Yugoslav Wars, and Jewish emigration from the Maghreb. The contributors, all innovators in the field of oral history, include Henry Greenspan who provides reflections from forty years of listening to Holocaust survivors as well as an insightful afterword. They demonstrate that – through deep listening, long-term relationship building, and collaborative research design – it is possible to move beyond the problematic aspects of “testimony” to shine light on the more nuanced lives of survivors of mass violence. In the process, they offer alternative approaches to the collection of oral history that will shake the foundations of current historiographical practice.

Contents:

""Cover""; ""Contents""; ""Acknowledgments""; ""Introduction""; ""PART 1: The Political Work of Witness""; ""1 The Ex-Disappeared in Post-Dictatorship Argentina""; ""2 Pessimism of the Intellect, Optimism of the Will""; ""3 The Ethics of Learning from Rwandan Survivor Communities""; ""4 The Role of Oral History in Surviving a Eugenic Past""; ""PART 2: Working with Survivors""; ""5 From Testimony to Recounting""; ""6 Collaborative Witnessing and Sharing Authority in Conversations with Holocaust Survivors""; ""7 Sharing “A Big Kettle of Soup�""

""8 “Questions Are More Important than Answers�""""9 On Tour with Mapping Memories""; ""PART 3: Acts of Composure and Framing""; ""10 Economic Violence, Occupational Disability, and Death""; ""11 The Frames We Use""; ""12 Memories of Departures""; ""13 Finding Meaning in Oral History Sources through Storytelling and Religion""; ""Afterword""; ""Contributors""; ""Index""

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

0-7748-2894-3

OCLC:

913977593