2011, Wilton, Janis

When I stumbled into the beginnings of my life as an oral historian in the late 1970s, in Australia, oral history was primarily an activity that happened outside universities. When pursued within universities, it was considered a fairly unsophisticated method for research projects. My own initiation came as a research assistant on a project to record the experiences of European refugees who had made their way to Australia in the years immediately preceding and following the Second World War. I went to my first interview armed with a tape recorder, some background on the topic, and no specific training in oral history. That initiation was not unusual since at the time there was limited, if any, oral history training offered at universities in Australia. There was also a deep skepticism directed at oral history by some academic historians. For those who did venture into the field, it was often with the belief that oral history interviewing was simply about asking questions and recording answers. It was seen as, after all, "just common sense." The skepticism - though now both more refined and more filtered - and the commonsense view can still he found within universities. However, the growth in university oral history courses, research projects, archives and other activities, their diversity and innovative nature, and the burgeoning literature on the teaching of oral history in tertiary institutions all suggest that oral history has moved from the margins to the mainstream, and that it is recognized as grounded in complex and sophisticated theories and methods. There is now a richness of oral history in universities, in Australia and elsewhere, that deserves exploring: its different practices and approaches adopted across disciplines, its literature, and its impact on students, staff, and on the relations between universities and their surrounding communities. In considering the role of oral history in universities past, present, and future, this survey makes no claims to be exhaustive or comprehensive and is limited by a focus primarily on English-language literature and on the programs, networks, and examples with which I am familiar, including my own teaching and learning practices. It aims, however, to provide an overview of key achievements, issues, strategies, and challenges, and to provoke thinking about ongoing and future issues, strategies, and concerns.

2007, Wilton, Janis

I reviewed the first edition of 'The Oral History Reader' and set it as a text for undergraduate and postgraduate students enrolled in my distance education oral history unit. Students received reading guides and review activities for selected contributions, were directed to read specific chapters for specific topics, and were advised to become familiar with the broad narrative of the evolution of oral history offered by the book, as well to immerse themselves in contributions that were of particular interest to them. For some students the first edition was a little too costly and not always easy to obtain, but it certainly provided a terrific introduction to oral history scholarship and practice, and its impact could be measured in the depth and thinking of the work submitted. But, 'The Reader' did get outdated. Oral history has moved with the times. So it was with anticipation that I approached the second edition. My key questions were: How does the second edition differ? What has gone? What has been added? How well does it serve oral history in the early twenty-first century? And, more subjectively, how well will it serve my students as well as other audiences? (I have consistently recommended 'The Reader', twinned with the latest edition of Beth Robertson's 'Oral History Handbook', as key starting points for students and, indeed, for any oral history project.)

2011, Wilton, Janis

Oral and public historian Janis Wilton used oral history and photography to deal with the loss of her mother, just as other essays, by Marles and Mannik for example, consider the therapeutic potential and challenges of such projects. Taking photographs of the inventory of her mother's house - creating new material memory objects (photographs) of old material memory objects (e.g. a toaster) - allowed her to find out about the manifold meanings her relatives attached to the relationships with their mother, grandmother, or aunt. As Wilton says, "We decided to photograph memories." Rather than using photographs only as triggers of memory, the need to remember also triggered the need to photograph. Family members' memories were stirred by material objects; this stimulated the desire to create photographs as durable, portable material memory objects. The photograph of Wilton's mother's old toaster is a different kind of material memory object than the toaster itself. Wilton's research, like that of most essays in this collection, shows that photographs and memory stories cannot be thought of as a one-way street. The photograph-memory relationship is not linear and unidirectional. In this photographic age, photographs are intrinsically linked with memories, they generate each other. And, like Bersch and Grant in a later essay, Wilton points to the value of oral historians creating their own photographs alongside those provided by interviewees.