So far you?ve seen documents, photographs, pages from a book and you?ve heard people talk about what they remember: what is known as ‘oral history?. Next you?ll be listening to Howard Mitchell as he talks about what he was aiming for in recording an oral history of Lennox Castle and hearing him talk about some ethical issues connected with doing this. To finish with, you?ll have a chance to think about how you might go about doing something similar.
The audio files of Howard Mitchell are in two parts.
Listen to Track 1, ‘What oral history adds to the record?, and as you do, note down why he says evidence from oral history is important.
Interactive content appears here. Please visit the website to use it.Transcript
Download Track 1: Why evidence from oral history is important
Interactive content appears here. Please visit the website to use it.Some points you may have noted from Track 1:
Then, listen to Track 2, ‘Ethical issues in oral history?, noting down what Howard picks out as ethical issues in oral history with people with learning disabilities.
Interactive content appears here. Please visit the website to use it.TranscriptDownload Track 2: Ethical issues in oral history with people with learning disabilities
Interactive content appears here. Please visit the website to use it.From Track 2 you might have noted down that Howard was concerned about the vulnerability of some of the people he talked to because:
Finally, write down six questions you might want to ask someone like James Lappin or Margaret Scally about the time they spent at Lennox Castle as a resident. Once you?ve noted down your questions, make another list of the ethical issues you might need to be careful about. Having done that, you may feel you need to change your original questions, of course.
You may have found it hard to choose only six questions. Here?s one possible selection:
As to ethical issues, you might want to:
You?ve been listening to people who lived and worked at what feels like a rather extraordinary institution; a place where some people spent nearly all their lives under a regime that seems to have had very little concern about who they were or might want to be. Places like Lennox Castle affected many people?s lives and continue to do so even though they?ve now closed. Records kept in the archives give an intriguing and sometimes shocking impression of cruel practices that were typical on an everyday basis. However, the records don?t tell you about what it felt like to experience those practices, nor do they show you how some people who worked there admired and were affected by the residents they met. In the end, the oral history is important because it helps you to understand what might otherwise be hidden from you, because, as Allan Williamson says: ‘You?ll never know what it was like, because you were never there?.
Except for third party materials and otherwise stated (see terms and conditions), this content is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Licence
