Narratives of vicarious experience in oral history interviews with craft artists

Abstract

This paper analyzes two case narratives of vicarious experience (NoVE) from oral history interviews with a designer and an art and antique dealer in the Smithsonian Archive of American Art. I explore the relational work the case narratives accomplish, including how they are used to engage an audience and to contribute towards self-identity. Furthermore, the NoVE are shown to expand the experiential dimension of what can be ‘known’ about people and events. I propose the concept of a web of shared experience alongside Linde's (2009) “institutional memory” to capture this enhanced experientiality.