Oral history presentation

Feminist pragmatism

Assumptions about how knowledge is created

·       Understanding of truth can change through conversation

·       (subjects concern) might produce knowledge not valued

Assumptions about truth

·       Subjective truth located in a particular perspective

·       Created through active participation of interviewer + subject

·       Subject’s truth may differ from interviewers

·       Truth is not always presented directly

Ethics

Assumptions about how the world works

Power & control

·       Interviewer and subject work together = subject can resist

·       Need for critical study of dominant framework

Theory of history

·       Contests “great man’ theory of history

·       Oral history narrators actively shape stories = create stories never told before