[Week 5: Sept 30] A1. Oral history

1. Oral history
Oral history is the systematic collection of living people's testimony about their own experiences.

1.1. Life stories or life histories

1.2. A cultural form for:
-Disadvantaged group
-Private life
-Alternative or subversive interpretation

2. Procedures

2.1. Choosing a theme or subject area
-A topic not covered by written history
-Some important witnesses to a particular event or a historical moment
-Alternative interpretations

Examples:
-《晚晚六點半》: The living experience of women workers in the process of industrial/economic restructuring (from 1970s-1990s).
-《又喊又笑》：The historical stories of elderly women

2.2. Identifying interviewees
-"Snowball" sampling

2.3. Types of interview
-Individual cases
-Collecting evidence or viewpoints on a particular theme or incident from a group of interviewees.

2.4. A rough outline of questions

2.5. Language use

3. Guidelines

3.1. Interview is a series of interaction

3.2. Listening rather than questioning

3.3. Paying attention to context

3.4. The setting of interview


4. Paperwork

4.1. Content analysis
Example I: Housewives' stories about child-birth are particularly detailed.
Example II: The experience in the incident of "June 4" is important to Hong Kong people aged 35-50.

4.2. Discourse analysis
Example I: "Refrains and recurrences"
Example II: "I" and "We"

4.3. Forms of storage
-sound clip
-video
-written archive
-documentary

5. Case study I: Same-sex attraction

5.1. The debate over homosexuality: biologically determined or acquired?

5.2. A project of personal history of gay/bisexual men

5.3. Three sources of initial awareness of differences

-A pervasive and emotional captivation with other boys that felt passionate, exotic, consuming, and mysterious;

-A strongly felt desire to engage in play activities and to possess traits usually characteristic of girls

-Disinterest or revulsion in typical boys' activities, especially team sports and physical play

"It is not surprising that "prehomosexuals" used gender metaphors, rather than sexual metaphors, to interpret and explain childhood feelings of difference... Children do not appear to define their sexual experimentation in heterosexual or homosexual terms. The socially created categories of homosexual, heterosexual, and bisexual hold little or no significance for them." (Savin-Williams 2004(1997): p. 116)

5.4. Sex and gender
-Gender awareness is prior to sexual expression
-Sexual feeling is not necessarily separated from gender experience.

6. Case study II: When is Hong Kong's golden age? When is Hong Kong's decline?
6.1. Golden Chicken: From the late 1970s to 1997 (A dominant narrative)

6.2. Factory worker (woman): From the 1970s to the early 1990s

6.3. From luxury to poverty (A dominant impression)

6.4. From sisterhood to alienation

6.5. Significance:
-Presenting an alternative picture of Hong Kong people's life to the dominant viewpoint
-Negotiating historical understanding of Hong Kong
-Gender experience in Hong Kong history

References:
口述史學：理論與方法
Step-by-step guide
Oral history: collective memories of Hong Kong