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FGV Conferences, XXII IOHA International Conference - Oral History in a Digital and Audiovisual World

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30 years of interviews: the experience of the Nucleus of Oral History Studies at USP
Marcela Boni Evangelista

Last modified: 20-12-2022

Abstract


The Nucleus of Studies in Oral History at the University of São Paulo was founded in 1992 by Professor José Carlos Sebe Bom Meihy, with the collaboration of undergraduate students of that year. Two years later, this group also participated in the creation of the Brasilian Oral History Association, a space for dialogue with researchers from different parts of Brazil.Over 30 years, dozens of researchers have developed academic studies at the University of São Paulo at the scientific initiation, master's and doctoral levels, in which the most varied themes were contemplated: social movements, ethnic-racial relations, religiosities, sports, gender and sexual and reproductive rights, among others.And it was in this process of preparing projects and carrying out interviews that different ways of producing records and exercising their textual establishment were experimented with. Currently, we can say that there are at least four types of interviews: life history, thematic oral history, testimonial oral history and oral tradition.The oral history of life based on denser recordings and performed through stimuli; thematic oral history admitting the use of more objective scripts of questions; testimonial oral history concerned with elements related to traumatic experiences; and, finally, the oral tradition, dependent on a greater immersion of researchers in the studied communities.In addition to the specific aspects of each way of establishing dialogue between interviewers and interviewees, formats were also developed to put the recordings into practice, which use technologies from the simplest, with audio recorders, to audiovisual production. The latter intensified during the Covid-19 pandemic period, when the use of digital platforms became an indispensable instrument for the continuity of work.In all cases, ethical precautions were central to thinking about the intersubjective dimension of collecting reports and the analytical process that accompanies research developments.


 
 
 
 

Keywords


Oral history; enterview; narratives