Oral history and sense of place.

Oral History and Public Memory addresses the incorporation of interviews in the process of presenting history. Like many of the other books we have read, Shopes and Hamilton collected a variety of articles discussing oral history and the ways in which these accounts are utilized. They present the articles in three sections, effectively categorizing them as relevant to heritage, identity and community, and the potential changes oral histories can bring about. I really like this format, as I feel I got a diverse overview of the way oral history can be used and the potential impact it can have.

The aspect of sense of place came up frequently in these articles, and I noticed its presence in my own interviewing experience as well. The woman I interviewed kept talking about her neighborhood and how it has changed over the years. She kept pointing in different directions (even though we were inside) and talking me through the geography of what it once was and what it is today. This sense of place, as we've read in the Glassberg book, is a powerful theme in peoples' memories. In the chapter on Aboriginal people of Australia, Maria Nugent writes, "For history to inform heritage, it needed to plot its narratives in space as well as in time" (50). She talks about how you can't really try and prod an interviewee into naming the significance of a place; the significance is embedded in the stories they tell. Sean Field also addresses sense of place in his chapter about Cape Town and the residents of the displaced neighborhoods of Langa and District Six. He describes sense of place as “…an imaginative act that combines ongoing sensory inputs from the surrounding social and physical landscape with a person’s internal world of selected and constructed memories” (111). There is power in physical space, and whether or not that place still exists in the physical world is beside the point. In these interviews, we get examples of the connection to buildings, waterways, trees, and more. By grounding themselves in a tangible space, interviewees create a safe place for memory, a safe place to talk about the past, even if it is difficult. Place becomes a character in their stories.

Selma Thomas also talks about space in here article, but in relation to the presentation of oral histories. She discusses the ways in which oral histories can be presented in museums and how visitors might interact with these unique artifacts. The spot where an oral history is exhibited within a museum is going to affect the way in which a visitor interprets it. A secluded corner will make the listener feel privy to private information, whereas an interview presented in a prominent spot will seem to give the narrative more authority (89). I suppose my point is that space and sense of place are consistently intertwined with our interpretation of the past, and we see this through its presence in oral accounts as well as in presentation of those narratives.