Oral History Interviews Research Articles

The Inter-University Seminar on Armed Forces and Society 70 Years Later: Alive and Kicking

This article provides an account of the founding, growth, and success of the Inter-University Seminar on Armed Forces & Society (IUS), a long-established professional organization for those studying the military and war. How IUS has thrived invites explanation. Two theoretical themes guide our effort: first, the life cycles of organizations literature, and two, a complementary focus on the professional-career life cycles of IUS’s participants. To put together our account, we review articles about IUS’s early days and present oral history interview material from past and present leaders and members. We conclude with suggestions concerning IUS’s future directions.

Learning from Our History: The Role of the New York Collective of Radical Educators in Movements for Educational Justice

Educator activists can play an important role in transforming not only what happens inside classrooms but also larger educational systems. While recent focus in research has been on social justice caucuses in teacher unions, there are also radical educator collectives like the New York Collective of Radical Educators (NYCoRE) that organize outside of union spaces. In this article, we (the current NYCoRE leadership body) analyze the historical impact of NYCoRE to theorize about the role of educator collectives in educational justice movements. Using oral history interviews with founding members of NYCoRE, we found that NYCoRE has provided a political home for radical educators, supported critical professional development, and prepared educators to contribute to educational justice movements. National implications are discussed.

From Laggard to Innovator: Barbara Fruchter and the 1970s-Era Movement to Deinstitutionalize Pennsylvania Juvenile Justice

Abstract: Using diverse archival sources and oral history interviews, this essay examines how volunteer activist women in the 1970s galvanized support to pass major legislative reforms that made Pennsylvania a model for how to implement the federal Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act (JJDPA) of 1974 at the state level. Horrified by conditions they witnessed on a tour of a nearby juvenile detention center, three Philadelphia area women created a broad-based coalition—centered in the Juvenile Justice Center (JJC) of Pennsylvania—to improve local conditions of confinement and spearhead novel policies to transform juvenile justice statewide. Focusing on Barbara Fruchter, JJC cofounder and de facto leader of the state’s deinstitutionalization campaign, this essay probes how a now well-accepted idea in juvenile justice—treating the great majority of delinquent youth in small community-based rather than large institutional programs—was first envisioned and introduced into American juvenile justice a half-century ago.

Historicizing Socially Disabling Experiences of Chinese Adoptees in the United States in the Late One-child Policy Era

Abstract This article explores how the model minority trope impacts the “conditional inclusion” of Chinese adoptees from 1991 to 2015 when mainland China initiated legal overseas Chinese adoption. Intertwined with state-prescribed and sometimes adoptive family's expectation of “a good Asian adoptee,” the model minority trope simultaneously reconnects Chinese adoptees to their Asianness, and yet alienates them at the same time among Asian Americans due to their unique status as migrants through adoption. Utilizing an ethnographic approach to narrate Chinese adoptees’ stories, I draw on oral history interviews with Chinese adoptees, adoptive parents, and adoption facilitators to elucidate how the model minority trope and lucky one rhetoric complicated Chinese adoptees’ lived experiences as adopted Chinese in the United States and their understanding of their ever-evolving identities. Through highlighting the voices of both able-bodied and disable-bodied Chinese adoptees, this article argues that as “non-immigrant immigrants,” Chinese adoptees’ identities are caught between socially disabling biologism and adoptivism, and Chinese-ness and Americanness. Being physically Chinese and culturally (white) American, Chinese adoptees are culturally alienated from within their adoptive family as well as the outside world due to tenuous Sino-American relations and dominant white culture.

“I Remember Feeling Pretty Darn Lucky”: Crafting Family Resilience in Response to a Medical Emergency

ABSTRACT Through a combination of autoethnographic reflections and oral history interviews with my parents, I explore the ways in which we enacted resilience throughout my father’s unexpected hospitalization, rehabilitation, and his subsequent years of recovery, both individually and communally. Using communication theory of resilience (CTR) as a framework, I identify the ways in which we engaged in the five processes outlined by the theory: crafting normalcy, emphasizing action while backgrounding negative feelings, affirming identity anchors, relying on communication networks, and employing alternative logics. I then propose three additional processes of enacting resilience that emerged from my family’s insights: enacting performative resilience, connecting to broader experience, and emphasizing perspective-taking. To conclude, I reflect on the value of these communicative processes and the combination of research practices I engaged in the paper, as well as the practical benefits of CTR and my additions to the theory.

Rebels in Diaspora

San Francisco’s Mission District is well known for its vibrant and diverse Latinx murals that began in the late 1960s. Yet little is known of the few Central American muralists who contributed to its community mural movement in the 1980s and 1990s. The eighties were a pivotal decade in which artists of Central American descent began to participate in creating activist murals representing and critiquing the civil wars then occurring in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Nicaragua. This article provides a new understanding of the roots of Salvadoran American murals that were manifested as a direct response to the US intervention in the Central American civil wars. I examine the history of two artists/muralists of Salvadoran descent: Herbert Sigüenza and Isaías Mata, who painted murals in the Mission District from 1982 to 1992 in solidarity with the Central American liberation movements. Although Sigüenza and Mata relied on individual experiences as visual artists, there are significant parallels between them as they negotiated painting from within the country—the United States—that openly intervened in the Salvadoran civil war. In an era when artists of non–Central American descent were responsible for the majority of murals created in San Francisco in solidarity with Central America, this article presents a thorough examination of the motivations that drove two Salvadoran artists to create their own solidarity murals. I show how Sigüenza and Mata contributed a revolutionary and anti-imperialist perspective in their murals based on their diasporic subjectivity. My sources are archival documents, visual analysis, and oral history interviews conducted with Sigüenza and Mata.

Why Did Albanians Protect Jews during the Holocaust?

Abstract The fact that some Albanians protected Jews during the Holocaust has long been known in Albania and has become increasingly well known in the West since Israel recognized sixty-five Muslim Albanians as Righteous Gentiles. Albanian historians ignored these facts until the fall of communism, and Westerners portrayed Albanian helpers of Jews as generalized mythical Muslims with a medieval culture in an obscure pro-Semitic European oasis rather than as individuals making a variety of choices. This research sheds light on the ideological limitations pervasive in existing Albanian historical scholarship and then draws on twenty-seven new oral history interviews with families who saved Jews to outline a range of reasons that Albanians of various religions, political backgrounds, and social statuses took Jews into their care between 1942 and 1945. Going beyond reductionist nationalist explanations, we see that it was a combination of geographically differentiated socio-cultural, political, economic, and war-specific factors that led to Jews finding safe haven in some areas populated by ethnic Albanians during World War Two.

Beyond the neoliberal label: A historical perspective on sexual actors and responsibility in HIV prevention in England (1986-2023).

Framed across three distinct periods of the history of neoliberalism and the HIV epidemic in England, this article conducts a detailed examination of the concept of personal responsibility and its contested uses within HIV prevention. The article questions the theoretical potential of neoliberal subjectivities to comprehend behaviours related to the pharmaceuticalised governance (or lack thereof) of gay men's sexual health, exploring the gap between theories emphasising individual responsibility and the practical experiences of gay men. The analysis draws on testimonials from gay men in oral history interviews and archival sources. The article illustrates how the pervasive notion of personal responsibility in England has been co-opted by neoliberal ideologies, leading to the stigmatisation of gay men whose sexual behaviours diverge from public health mandates. The widespread stigmatisation resulting from this ideology underscores a significant limitation in the theoretical framework of neoliberal subjectivities. This constraint extends beyond merely failing to grasp the complexity of sexual behaviours; it also reflects a lack of understanding of any other behaviour related to public health. Therefore, the article concludes by advocating the necessity of employing and constructing alternative theoretical frameworks to comprehend the pharmaceutical governance or lack thereof of gay men's sexual health. Through a concise autoethnography of the authors' pharmaceutical sexual health governance, the article introduces the concept of biocommesuration as an illustrative analysis that transcends the limitations of neoliberal subjectivities.

Home futures: a house biography of futures for a modernist high-rise estate

House biographies tend to focus on buildings’ pasts. By comparison, this article develops a house biography of futures for a modernist high-rise estate, the Aylesbury Estate in London. It argues that a house biography of futures explores the multiple futures of house, building, estate and the built environment. To provide the biography the fieldwork involved archival research, oral history interviews and home tours, semi structured in-depth interviews and photography. The article reveals the history of governed futures at the estate. Multiple modes of future governance unfolded, such as a modernist future and regeneration, due to the indeterminacy of the future. There were a range of everyday home futures, including a modernist domesticity and more ordinary futures, with the future present in the estate’s materiality and residents’ lived experiences. The article draws attention to the multiple futures of home.

Travelling memories, the afterlife of feelings, and associative diffraction in oral histories of Northern Irish migrants to Britain during the Troubles

ABSTRACT This article proposes an innovative analytical framework for understanding memory work in oral history interviews with migrants who experienced the Troubles in Northern Ireland before migrating to Britain. Integrating theories of diasporic subjectivity from migration studies with conceptual developments in oral history and current research on memory, temporality and the history of emotions, it focuses on transnational dynamics in ‘travelling memories’ of the Troubles brought to Britain by first-generation migrants; the long temporal ‘afterlife of feelings’ attached to conflict memories; and the process of ‘associative diffraction’ whereby chronologically sequential memories are interrupted, fragmented and recombined in achronological sequences linking diverse temporal moments and spatial locations. The utility of these concepts is explored in an intensive analysis of memory dynamics and subjectivity in a single interview, with Siobhán O’Neill, who grew up Catholic, working-class and queer in nationalist/republican West Belfast at the epicentre of conflict violence, and moved to London in 1986. The article argues that the specificities of individual migration stories such as Siobhán’s resist conventional generalisation, and offers a new theoretical and methodological framework for the systematic investigation of quotidian experiences, memories and silences that are unexplored in the established historiographies of the Troubles and the Irish diaspora in Britain.

Disenchanted With the Immigrant Dream: The Sociological Formation of Ex-Immigrant Subjectivity

AbstractAlthough many return migrants had planned to go back to their country of origin, other return migrants who had originally planned to pursue the immigrant dream––the idea that one can have a better life by migrating—eventually change their mind and return to their society of origin. Just as the identity of individuals must adjust to the loss of a relationship, job, or membership of a group, many formerly aspiring immigrants give up on immigrating. I analyze data from oral history interviews and social media narratives of 121 Chinese ex-immigrants from 16 different countries. I show how disappointments, the language barrier, cultural alienation, racial-ethnic discrimination, intersectional-gender issues, barriers to upward socioeconomic mobility, and/or restrictive immigration policies interact with each other to constitute ex-immigrant subjectivity. This article highlights why immigration is a far less certain process than many perceive it to be, contributing to the broader sociological literature on how in different and similar ways processes of abandoning important social endeavors, like a romantic partnership, political party, or religious faith, transform subjectivities and social identities in other domains of social life.

Out on the Floor: Exploring the London Lesbian Club Scene of the 1980s and 1990s

ABSTRACT This article sets out to counter dominant depictions of DJs and clubbing that privilege white male DJs and their scenes, and that erase nightclubbing’s Black queer origins. Using queer oral history interviews and engaging with material fragments from the time (playlist notes, flyers, records), I focus on London in the late 20th century, where Black and white lesbian DJs, promoters, and clubbers created their own club scene. The scene’s events and nights were a combination of queer women’s creative cultural activism and the love of music that DJs and dancers shared, away from the surveillance and gaze of the straight world.

Women coaches, professionalisation, and national governing body mergers in England, 1989–2000

ABSTRACT Between 1989 and 2000, many women’s sports which had previously been governed separately to men’s sport were forced into ‘mergers’ with male governing bodies. These processes were profoundly disempowering for the women involved, often leaving them with very limited voice and representation in the governance of their sport post-merger. In this article, I detail the experiences of female coaches caught up in these merger processes, based on an analysis of archival documents and oral history interviews across six sports (squash, athletics, football, hockey, lacrosse and cricket). For some women coaches, the mergers proved a positive step on the path to professionalisation: they began to be paid for work which previously was often done for free. However, in other cases, elite coaching roles were removed and reallocated to men at the point of merger. Prior to the mergers, many women’s sports were coached entirely or predominantly by women; however, the mergers led to the loss of a generation of women coaches who were either actively pushed out or were asked to ‘requalify’ for their roles and left coaching altogether. The legacies of the mergers are still evident today in the structural gender discrimination which operates across contemporary British sport coaching.

Dwelling and healing with saints and jinn in the haunted landscapes of Palestine

The Jinn of Islamic and Middle Eastern popular mythology play a role in maintaining spatial divisions between sacred and profane space, public and protected areas, and acceptable and exceptional behaviour. Though research on jinn continues to be of importance in cross-cultural psychology, the rich relationship between jinn and place has largely been lost or severed. This paper seeks to restore this link through an examination of the relationship between unseen spirits and place in Palestine and throughout the Levant ( Bilad ash-Sham). Drawing upon both European and Palestinian historical ethnographic writing, as well as oral history interviews with Palestinian elders, this paper examines spatial practices that can attract, prevent, or heal harm from jinn and other unseen forces, as well as places where such spirits dwell, including graveyards, caves, wells, sacred trees, and shrines. Jinn play a dual role in helping to protect the sanctity of these places, while also threatening to violate the intimate space hearth and home. In this way, jinn play an important role in both establishing, and at times blurring and negotiating social mores and their related physical boundaries. In examining how jinn threaten the sanctity of homes and bodies, but also how place-dwelling spirits help to heal bodies and sooth souls, this paper moves beyond mere metaphorical understandings of spectral geographies to understand the material implications of unseen and imagined forces. By doing so, this paper builds upon recent research exploring the deep connection between the environment and spiritual/sacred understandings of place.

The Women Who Built the Smithsonian Anacostia Community Museum Collection

This essay explores the work of women who shaped the collection of the Smithsonian’s Anacostia Community Museum: Historian and Director of Research Louise Daniel Hutchinson (1928–2014), Curator Portia James (1953–2015), and Historian Gail S. Lowe (1950–2015) whose exhibitions and projects built a rich community-based collection. Hutchinson’s work during the formative years of 1974 to 1986 elevated local voices in the research process and brought educator, Anna J. Cooper (1858–1964) out of obscurity. Portia James’ including community voices and perspectives in the exhibition process, resulting in her most celebrated exhibitions: Black Mosaic: Community, Race, and Ethnicity Among Black Immigrants in Washington, D.C. (1994). Her project amassed a large amount of oral history interviews, photographic documentation, and research files. Gail S. Lowe’s projects expanded the museum collection to include national and international voices on issues that resonated with the local community. Her exhibition exploring contemporary African American religious traditions, generated primary research materials on diverse faiths and spiritual traditions espoused by African Americans in Washington, D.C., and selected cities across the country. The collective work of all these women generated a wealth of resources and invaluable information that continues to be consulted by scholars and the public.

(Self-) accountability practices and the invisibilized non-able body: a case study of celiac disease

This paper explores the relationship between the non-able body and accountability practices in organizations. Through oral history interviews with celiac-afflicted professionals, we illustrate that employees with this autoimmune condition seek to give an account, but often fail to live up to, accountability standards at work. We focus on the way that social elements of performance, social attributes and embodied perceptions of a healthy body are accounted for in organizations, paying attention to employer-initiated accountability practices and employees’ responses which we term employee-adjusted accountability practices. We find that employees with celiac disease attempt to embody an able body, hiding experiences with the disease and can do violence to their own bodies in the name of accountability. In particular, drawing on Messner (2009), who articulated the experience of ethical violence on the accountable self in organizations, our findings show that the accountable non-able body self can enact physical violence to the body in an attempt to meet accountability expectations. We contribute to a growing body of literature in critical accounting that researches the way that accounting practices restrict the experiences of the accountable embodied self. We extend such efforts by exploring the impact of accountability practices in the area of long-term health and disease management at work.

Lesbian Lives in Soviet Latvia: The Narratives

This article employs narrative analysis to examine three testimonies provided by individuals who were contemporaries of lesbians in Soviet Latvia. The author’s research is based on two oral history interviews and the diary entries of a homosexual man, dating between the 1950s and 1980s. The research was carried out in four stages: (1) story analysis; (2) identification of main topics and characters; (3) identification of main terms and tone; and (4) extraction of three key narratives. The findings demonstrate, firstly, the lack of terminology to describe homosexual/non-heterosexual relationships between women when referencing the Soviet time. This indicates that contemporary terms used by the LGBTQI+ community may not be valid for analysing the experiences of non-heterosexual people in Soviet Latvia. Secondly, the testimonies described in this article view same-sex women’s relationships through heteronormative lens as deviating from the norm. Thirdly, the article highlights how rigid expectations of “manly” and “womanly” behaviour and traits are used to judge compliance with or deviation from societal norms. The understanding of non-heterosexual relationships between women, as evidenced by the sources, cannot be standardised. While the testimonies reference non-heterosexual relationships between women, they also mention same-sex relationships, which may have formed due to socioeconomic conditions and different intimate bonds.

Presence of Queer Sexuality in Memories of Latvian Non-Homosexuals of the Soviet Era

The research aims to analyse oral history interviews of heterosexual people about their experience with homosexuals during the Soviet times. Eight interviews were selected for the analysis based on two criteria – the research participant belongs to the Soviet generation, and he/she has personally known homosexuals during the Soviet times. The paper presents interviews as a primary source, illuminating several challenges with obtaining the interviews and their interpretation. In addition, common narratives of communicative memories’ evidence and their influence on current views of homosexuals in Latvian society, including its historical metanarrative and historical record, which relies on the nation’s victimisation during the Soviet times, are analysed.

Site of Social Justice Advocacy, or Home of Godly Women? Interpreting Women’s Work at the Frances Willard House Museum

In 1900, the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) transformed the Evanston, Illinois home of their late president, Frances Willard, into one of the first house museums dedicated to a woman in the United States. For over ninety years, WCTU members used the collections to situate Willard’s social reform career in the framework of domestic and religious duty. Recent efforts by historians and community members to reinterpret the collections to demonstrate Willard’s significance to a progressive, nondenominational, and diverse audience has sparked contentious debate over the ownership of the museum. Drawing on archival materials, published texts, and oral history interviews, this case study examines the use of space and artifacts, as well as the verbal sparring such choices have provoked. The controversy over the Willard House collections suggests that when women’s political and professional activity is central to a house museum’s significance, it becomes an especially contested commemorative site.

An Appeal for International Solidarity in a Time of the Cold War: Retracing Indonesia’s Participation in the 1966 Tricontinental Conference

Abstract In January 1966, Cuban President Fidel Castro announced at the Tricontinental Conference the killing of more than 100,000 people in Indonesia and the destruction of the left movement in that country. The 1965–66 massacre of members and sympathisers of the Indonesian Communist Party (Partai Komunis Indonesia, pki) in Indonesia ushered in the authoritarian New Order regime under General Suharto, marking a realignment in Cold War politics. This article examines the battle to represent Indonesia by two competing delegations at the Tricontinental Conference and the materials left behind as traces of Cold War era social movements and tricontinentalism. The aim of the article is twofold. Drawing on archival research, oral history interviews, ego-documents, and ethnographic observations, the article consists of a partial reconstruction of the Indonesian intervention at the Tricontinental Conference, arguably the last public, international intervention by Indonesian leftists. The second part of the article examines the archives, broadly defined, used in the reconstruction and the research process itself, given the contested nature of these memories. In so doing, the article illustrates how the end of the Cold War, the rise of new media and technologies, and democratisation in Indonesia have contributed to the transmission of memories of this past to audiences in and outside of Indonesia.