What is oral history ?
Oral history is recording people's unique life experiences. It consists of a well-prepared interviewer questioning & recording an interviewee.
Recordings are transcribed & stored in an archive - e.g. in a library or on a website such as this one.
Oral history 'accounts' can be used in research, publications exhibitions, web pages, radio or TV documentary.
There can be different approaches to collecting oral history accounts :
The Life story approach
Asking
people to
describe their experiences at different stages of their lives
Oral tradition ( folklore )
Finding
out about the ideas, traditions & beliefs people want
to pass down
from one generation
to the next
Storytelling
Some
people
prefer to describe their lives through stories &
anecdotes