Research skills for oral history

“It is essential within humanities to listen to human stories, human experiences…in order to inform our research…” – Dr Darren Paffey, lecturer in Spanish and Linguistics. This collection considers some of the issues around the collection of oral history for research purposes and is based on interviews which were recorded with Spanish emigres for a university research project into migration and exile.

The collection contains interviews with the original researcher in which he talks about the pleasures and challenges of doing oral history research; the challenges of interviewing historically famous people; dealing with interviewees who prefer to remain anonymous, and issues around interviewing couples. Accompanying the videos are the original research interviews, ethnographic notes, transcripts and synopses which assisted the researchers in their work. There is also a guide to how this material could be used for educational purposes.

All materials are licensed as open educational resources, so they can be downloaded and used for educational purposes. This collection is related to the iTunes collection ‘Incredible People, incredible stories,’ where the stories of four interviewees are presented.