Gender and the Categories of Experienced History

Abstract

In the last few decades several feminist historians have argued that women's history and oral history have points of connection. 1 Oral historians began to query whether the role of methodological debates derived from oral history might enhance a new discussion on the creation of sources and the subjectivity in sources -a set of questions that has been taken up by many feminist scholars; in addition oral historians early joined those who critiqued the narrative structure of historical writing. They also focused attention on the value of micro-histories, which have become much more common now than such histories were in an earlier phase of women's history. Oral history, like sociology and anthropology, has shown the value of localised examples and detailed case studies of small groups. This trend is also becoming visible in women's history of pre-contemporary periods. From the very beginning, international oral history conferences devoted a substantial number of sessions to women's history, repeatedly exploring the theme of the disappeared, silenced, or oppositional voices of women.But many who practise oral history are wondering where to move the field in the future. Much of our work has been the writing of history grounded in the analysis of a presumably representative segment of a particular population, based on the assumption that studying a small sample by using qualitative methods can yield important new insights. In a sense oral historians' theoretical posture is akin to sociologists', but with one major difference: their careful consideration of the dimensions of time and memory. Because time and memory are inherently volatile, however, they make arguments concerning the representative nature or empirical value of a given sample complicated. At the same time, gender has been inscribed in the field, rendering women and constructions of femininity and masculinity central objects of study.In order to combine the analytical strategy of sociology, history, and the study of gender, an alternative has been found in the method of life stories through which a whole life is told by means of an interview employing careful techniques. In creating life stories, an individual's experiences are contextualised within a wider web of meanings. Analysis will,

Transnational Families: Memories and Narratives

“…The relationship between language and thought, language and experience andnecessarily -language and memory (Leydesdorff 2000) has long been recognized in ethnographic and anthropological research. Furthermore, the symbolic structures integral to a culture are both reflected and embedded in the language used.…”

Untold Stories: A Study of Sudanese and Syrian Refugees in Estonia

“…Language play significant role in sharing memories, through which their past images comes into social construction (Leydesdorff, 2000). The link between language and memories has been emphasized by the researchers (Alexander, 1995) to reflect refugee lives.…”

“…Any disruptions of life, which leads separation from family members and be associated with force migration and then the ultimate result is the loss of country and home. To cope with the new environments and to reconstruct identity, stories that the refugees hold and to give them the space of telling that could assist them in creating new identities in terms of home and host society and culture and to gain control of their new lives in a foreign land (Leydesdorff , 2000;Frank, 2010).…”

The Unseamed Picture: Conflicting Narratives of Women in the Modern European Past

“…She went on to say that she was 'convinced that the strength of life stories lies in their ability to help us analyse a kaleidoscope of cultural representations'. 38 Such an approach is reminiscent of folktale and storytelling analysis which identifies common themes that transcend cultures, and hints at universal aspects of the human experience. Oral history, because of its base in the local or micro-context, has the potential both to change knowledge and to empower the community from whence it emanates.…”