‘We Bounce Off Each Other’s Vibe’: The Importance of Symmetrical Intersubjectivity between Interviewer and Narrator

Abstract

ABSTRACT The field of oral history has long theorized the intersubjectivities forged between narrators and interviewers, yet there is still a lingering assumption in some oral history literature that the positionality of the interviewer in relation to the narrator does not matter much to the interview process. This article seeks to challenge these assumptions by reporting on empirical data collected via interviews and focus groups with narrators who told their stories as part of two different peer-to-peer oral history programs led by two different community archives centered on Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC): Texas After Violence Project (TAVP) and the South Asian American Digital Archive (SAADA). In peer-to-peer oral histories, narrators and interviewers share at least some formative experiences and identities, reflecting a relationship of equality rather than extraction. Our findings indicate that, across participants from both organizations, shared positionalities engendered trust, safety, and rapport, creating conditions for life-changing interviews (that is, conversations that resulted in significant realizations and actions in narrators’ lives). Peer-to-peer oral history programs, in which members of minoritized communities interview each other, correct the power imbalance inherent when members of dominant groups interview narrators from minoritized groups. They counter extractive models in which credentialed academics mine minoritized community members as sources. We propose the notion of symmetrical intersubjectivity to describe the ways in which positionalities held in common between narrator and interviewer create the conditions for more honest, rich, and intimate life histories to be shared and recorded.