scholarly journals “I never thought I could be seen as an oral historian” – Fritz Schütze about the autobiographical narrative interview and oral history in conversation with Jakub Gałęziowski

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
pp. 238-260
Author(s):  
Jakub Gałęziowski
Keyword(s):  
Oral History ◽  
Narrative Interview ◽  
Autobiographical Narrative

Badania biograficzne rodzin więźniów. Refleksja metodologiczna Angelika Cieślikowska-Ryczko 1

2021 ◽  
pp. 135-162
Author(s):  
Angelika Cieślikowska-Ryczko
Keyword(s):  
Methodological Approach ◽  
Family Members ◽  
Research Field ◽  
Correctional Institution ◽  
Research Experience ◽  
Parental Relationships ◽  
Biographical Research ◽  
Narrative Interview ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Autobiographical Narrative

The article deals with the life situation of the families of prisoners, in particular, parental relationships connected with the experience of incarceration in a correctional institution. During the realisation of the research I noticed many difficulties in finding contact with potential interlocutors, therefore I considered the families of prisoners as an environment “invisible in the research field”. In addition, I defined families of prisoners as marginalised and stigmatised environments. The main aim of the article is to show selected methodological dilemmas that can be encountered through the design and analysis of biographical research of family members of prisoners. The theoretical introduction of the paper as an extended definition of the penitentiary crisis allowed to characterise the dominant trends and directions of research on prisoners’ families. Further, it focused on selected problems of realisation of qualitative research (especially biographical research). I analyse the literature and present my own methodological approach based on the direction of interpretative sociology. Using the potential of the autobiographical narrative interview technique (of the German sociological school of Fritz Schütze), I collected 31 interviews with adult children of prisoners and 30 interviews with parents of prisoners. Finally, I refer to my own research experience and discuss the “usefulness and ineffectiveness” of an autobiographical narrative interview. Moreover, I characterise key reflections on the role of the researcher in obtaining autobiographical narrations. The article is an invitation to discuss the improvement of research procedures, especially in the area of research on family members of persons in prisons.

scholarly journals ON THE PRODUCTION OF MY FAIR LION AND HIS PRIDE: A REFLEXIVE EXERCISE IN ORAL HISTORY

2016 ◽  
Vol 41 (3) ◽  
pp. 198-208
Author(s):  
Maarman Samuel Tshehla
Keyword(s):  
Oral History ◽  
Present Author ◽  
Life Story ◽  
Memory Formation ◽  
Grand Narrative ◽  
Oral History Interviews ◽  
Autobiographical Narrative

My fair lion and his pride is an autobiographical narrative of the life story of a respected and beloved, yet reserved and unlettered matriarch. The pleasure of capturing her recollections befell the present author. Consequently, the task of reflecting on the process that led to the production of My fair lion has also befallen him. In the present reflection, the author undertakes a retrospective journey guided by questions pertaining to oral history methodology. The dynamics of an individual remembering past events; the place of formal literacy in memory formation and retrieval; the role of the oral historian in oral history interviews and such other issues are indirectly explored below. In the end, it appears that while this author’s preceding ignorance of oral history considerations may have disadvantaged the production of My fair lion, the latter retains and communicates sufficient qualities not of a grand narrative, but of a down-to-earth Christian mother, wife, and in-law.

scholarly journals Świadek historii. Swobodne wspominanie a krytyka źródła historycznego – o ambiwalencji metody w zachodnioniemieckiej oral history około roku 1980

2013 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 39-72 ◽  
Author(s):  
Franka Maubach
Keyword(s):  
Oral History ◽  
Life Story ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Formative Period ◽  
Historical Period ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Interview Method ◽  
Narrative Interview ◽  
The Social ◽  
Past Experiences

Only recently has the contemporary witness become the subject of academic study. The emerging scholarship views this figure as belonging to a specific historical period, namely the post-Holocaust era. Today, the narrations of the contemporary witness are commonly understood as constructs, as stories developed synchronously in the course of the interview. The article takes a closer look at the formative period of the German Oral History studies around 1980, a field deeply informed by post-dictatorial sensibilities. It locates the figure of the contemporary witness, the interviewer and the interview methods employed within the historical context in which they emerged. Moreover, if we consider other Oral History approaches developed elsewhere and compare the German approach to Fritz Schütze’s narrative interview method for the social sciences, it can be identified as a genuinely historical, diachronically operating approach. By letting the interviewees talk about their memories uninterrupted, they were encouraged to reflect on their lives as a whole. A the same time, pioneers of the field such as Lutz Niethammer and Alexander von Plato developed ways to verify the narrations’ plausibility and thus to evaluate the reliability of the interview as istorical source. This combination of empathy and skepticism, of unconditional interest in a person’s full life-story and its critical verification became the hallmark of German Oral history Studies, not least because emerged in a post-dictatorial society. Rather than studying memories as mere constructions of the past, they developed a methodology aimed at enabling historians to get access to the actual past experiences which they believed are contained in the retrospective testimonies of individual human beings.

scholarly journals Dezorganizacja życia rodzinnego w sytuacji uwięzienia rodzica. Wstępna refleksja teoretyczna i wyniki badań własnych

2016 ◽  
Vol 60 (3) ◽  
pp. 119-131
Author(s):  
Angelika Sikorska
Keyword(s):  
Family Life ◽  
Social Group ◽  
Narrative Interview ◽  
The Family ◽  
Autobiographical Narrative

This article is devoted to the functioning of families that are in crisis as the result of a family member’s imprisonment. The author’s description of the most important functions and tasks of the family as the primary social group leads to further reflections. The disorganization of family life caused by placing a parent in prison is described and a case study is used to illustrate the issues. On the basis of an autobiographical narrative interview, the process of reorganizing family life is analyzed from the perspective of a ‘prisoner’s child.’

scholarly journals O (nie)widoczności prowadzącego spotkanie ze świadkiem historii – wstępna typologia ról inicjujących wywiady narracyjne

LingVaria ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 47-58
Author(s):  
Beata Duda ◽  
Katarzyna Sujkowska-Sobisz ◽  
Bernadetta Ciesek-Ślizowska
Keyword(s):  
Oral History ◽  
Narrative Interviews ◽  
Research Material ◽  
Narrative Interview ◽  
History Of

ON THE (IN)VISIBILITY OF THE LEADER IN A MEETING WITH A WITNESS OF HISTORY: A PRELIMINARY TYPOLOGY OF ROLES THAT INITIATE NARRATIVE INTERVIEWS The paper reflects on sender-recipient relations characteristic for the participants of a narrative interview with a witness of history. The research material comprises 1931 verbal activities, collected in the Archive of Oral History of The Warsaw Rising Museum, of people who conducted 32 meetings with participants of the Warsaw Uprising in 1944. The application of the interactive concept of text allowed us to create a preliminary typology of the activities of meeting leaders, viz. to identify four types of initiation: the opening, the complementary, the deepening and ordering, and the reactive one. Further analyses led to the identification of roles taken on by people who conduct meetings with witnesses of history, which we named the journalist, the researcher, and the friend.

scholarly journals The Coping Strategies in Biographies of Polish Middle- Class Representatives of (Post)Transformation Period

2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 194-210
Author(s):  
Jacek Burski
Keyword(s):  
Social Change ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Coping Strategies ◽  
Young Men ◽  
Life Strategies ◽  
Research Projects ◽  
Narrative Interview ◽  
Systemic Transformation ◽  
Autobiographical Narrative ◽  
Transformation Period

The article focuses on the problem of life strategies adapted by the representatives of young Polish middle-class in the (post)transformation period in Poland towards different aspects of social change. On the basis of two research projects focused on the consequences of the Polish systemic transformation, I discuss issues related to biographical experiences of this process. The main theoretical and methodological background is concentrated on using the autobiographical narrative interview to analyze coping strategies in relation to the class position of examined cases. The interviews taken under consideration have been conducted with young men who could be described as middle-class members.

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