Last week Part I of this article was presented here. Now here is Part II:

• ORAL HISTORY: RAPPORT, LISTENING AND STORYTELLING AS RESEARCH TECHNIQUES

Building Rapport and Dealing With Difference

During data collection, oral history relies on recording verbal communication between the researcher and research subject. We can break this down further and say that oral history is dependent on two techniques which foster the flow of data: talking and listening. Before a story is even told the interviewer and interviewee can begin to understand how to listen and talk in the context of producing a life narrative. It is important that the interviewer and interviewee begin to create a rapport prior to the first recorded interview session (if possible), a rapport which they must attend to throughout the interviewing process. While rapport is always dialectical, the primary responsibility is with the researcher who has initiated the research process. This may mean some preliminary discussions so that both parties feel comfortable with each other and begin to become familiar with each other’s “talk style.”

Prior to the initial meeting, interviewers can discard their own researchoriented time frame in favor of narrators’ temporal expectations. Taking time to know another means more than a preliminary interview; it entails meeting for an extended session or more. Congruent with good oral history practice, researchers take the opportunity to solicit narrators’ comments and suggestions about the project, including names of potential narrators, other resource persons, and sources for photos, artifacts and written materials. However, the purpose of the initial contact is not just a preliminary interview to obtain data; the meeting is an opportunity to promote collegiality and to engage in mutual self disclosure. (Minister, in Gluck and Patai, 1991, p. 36)

The process of gaining rapport and building collegiality is vital to the successful interview process. Linguistic practices are also a part of this. As we will see later in our section on storytelling, there are various structures people use to tell their stories, and both parties must be comfortable with each other’s style.

Although we have discussed rapport and reciprocity as critical in the use of all interactive qualitative research methods, these issues are perhaps heightened in the oral history situation—particularly for researchers who envision the process holistically. This is because, as a researcher, you are not simply asking the research participants to allow you to observe naturally occurring behavior that is independent of the research process (as in field research). Likewise, you are not asking a set of questions on a clearly defined topic (such as with indepth and focus group interviews). When you ask someone to participate in an oral history project you are asking that person to narrate their life story and, through words, to share themselves on a deep level. Depending on the nature of the project you may be asking them to revisit difficult times in their life without any guarantee that once you have triggered their memory, they will be able to “turn it off ” at will. Likewise, you may have no idea what directions the person’s story will go in once the narrative takes off. Thus you cannot define all of the topics that will be covered in advance—you simply don’t know them yet. Rapport is therefore essential in the oral history process because the interviewee gives a high level of trust over to the researcher and makes themselves vulnerable to a range of emotions, feelings, and thoughts that may stretch from very positive and joyous to difficult and painful. When a foundation for trust is established the collaborative process of oral history can proceed and the research participant will know that the researcher is truly there with them for the ride. As you will see, oral history is an intimate process of two people working together in order to produce a meaningful biographical narrative.

Given the collaborative nature of oral history, who can do it? Who can be an interviewer? As with all interactive research, issues of difference are an inseparable part of the research process. As such, to what extent can the researcher and narrator differ from one another? For example, some researchers suggest that because different groups within the social order have particular experiences and particular ways of expressing those experiences, “sameness” is integral to a successful oral history interview. Minister (1991) explains that women communicate differently than men and without supportive communication in return some women may be muted. As such, women must interview women because they share in a particular sociocommunication subculture and understand how to talk with other women. Other researchers actively incorporate difference into their research but practice reflexivity throughout the project in order to avoid claiming authority over another. For example, Sparkes (1994) conducted an oral history project with a lesbian despite the fact that he differed in terms of both gender and sexual orientation. As such, he did not share in the experience of oppression (and multiple oppressions) that framed his respondent’s life. As a part of reflexive practice Sparkes wrote about the experience of interviewing someone who does not share in the unearned social privileges that he enjoys. By incorporating this difference into the entire research endeavor, including the write-up, Sparkes demonstrates that social privilege can be used to help give voice to those typically silenced within the culture (1994). There is much debate in academia about who can be a knower, who can understand the words of another, and so forth. Ultimately, these are personal choices that the researcher must make. In thinking through some of these issues as you select your topic and design your research project, you’ll have to consider your epistemological beliefs regarding the relationship between the researcher and researched. When writing up your results, you’ll need to consider to what extent you are able to have authority over the life story of another, particularly if you do not share a vital social status (i.e., the experience of oppression due to race, ethnicity, social class, gender, or sexuality).

• LISTENING

During the interview process the researcher assumes the role of active listener. This role is not simply the role of listener we all enact with friends, family, and colleagues. As the interviewer in an oral history situation, the researcher must learn to listen with a completion and attentiveness that is far more rigorous and in tune with nuance than most of us use in daily life. As such, we must train our minds and ears to hear the story of others, not just the words, but also the meaning, the emotion, the silence. We must listen to the narrator and to ourselves. This process may involve the questioning and disavowing of previously held concepts and categories that frame our understanding of social reality, making the process potentially transformational for the researcher as well. Feminist scholar and oral historian Dana Jack explains that the complexity of “listening” experienced in oral history is the very thing that makes this method unique. Let’s join her behind the scenes.

Behind-the-Scenes With Dana Jack What I think the unique aspects are is that what it does is it allows the researcher to situate herself or himself right in the middle between the culture and the individual. And what I mean by that is as we listen to a person, what we hear is an individual’s life story in its full idiosyncrasy, with all of the details and all of the sort of particulars of that person’s life. But as a researcher you’re also listening for the culture and so you also know that the very words that the person uses to explain their life and their situations also come from the culture and so they’re explaining their life though um, culturally available stories. And yet, when we listen carefully, you can hear how the individual also participates in all those cultural stories but also brings their different experiences and so what you’re listening for is how—to me I’m listening for so many things. One is how the person, the individual, the idiosyncratic story relates to the larger cultural story and how the narratives are available and how those cultural narratives can sometimes obliterate a person’s meaning, a person’s experience, and then they have to sort out what they think and feel in relation to the larger story, and so I guess what I love about the oral history method is that it lets you listen to the individual really carefully while also still understanding the larger cultural narrative and how the person participates in that. And of course there are many larger cultural narratives . . . So it lets, let’s see how to say this, well, I don’t know (laughs). It just lets us, it lets us listen to at least two large voices, one is the individual and the other is the cultural narrative that they dip in and out of. And then how, where’s the tension? Where are the questions? Where’s the person um, feeling confused by how their own experience relates to these larger narratives? How and why are they trying to distinguish their experiences or does the larger narrative try to you know, seem to obliterate it and what happens then? How do they feel? So I’m always listening for not just one voice, not to that subject’s voice only, but how it intertwines and distinguishes itself and is in conflict with other narratives, other larger narratives.

As qualitative researchers engaged in research involving human participants, we are searching for meaning from the perspective of those being studied. In order to get at this kind of meaning we must become nonjudgmental and open listeners. The researcher needs to be right there with the person narrating their story. In this way we need to “immerse ourselves in the interview” (Jack, 1991, p. 18)[AUTHOR: is this Anderson jack?][Yes, but this text is odd. The authors, Anderson and Jack have indicated in the chapter who wrote which section—this section was written by Jack but in the piece by Anderson and Jack, so I’m not sure how this is to be properly cited] in order to hear meaning from the perspective of the person speaking. But how are we to know if what we are hearing is the person’s perspective? How do we know that our own life experiences and categories of understanding are not filtering the meaning we take from the experience? While, of course, as imprinted human subjects ourselves, we can [AUTHOR: can or can’t meant here?][can’t]simply disavow our own understandings of social reality, there are techniques that we can apply to the oral history interview in order to better get at meaning from the respondent’s perspective.

Dana Jack (1991) suggests three techniques aimed at helping us become more effective listeners. These are specific things we can listen for—places where meaning, from the narrator’s viewpoint, can be found. First, researchers can listen to a person’s “moral language” (p. 19). These kinds of comments tend to be self-evaluative. How a person evaluates themselves can tell us a lot about where the person is placing emphasis in their life, and how they use cultural constructs of success, failure, attractiveness, promiscuity, etc. as measures in their own lives and identity formation. These comments also provide insights into a person’s emotional center, places of self-confidence and self-scrutiny.

Although very different in tone, these moral self-evaluative statements allow us to examine the relationship between self-concept and cultural norms, between what we value and what others value, between how we are told to act and how we feel about ourselves when we do or do not act that way. (p. 20)

For example, if you are conducting an oral history with a woman and you are talking about some joyous event in her life, such as a special birthday party or other family celebration, and in the midst of her talking she says “the cake was really beautiful with ornate decorations and it was so good but of course I felt guilty about having so much right there,” this would clue you in to several things. This is an example of using moral language—the language of guilt—to impart meaning. This may serve as a signal to the interviewer that there are some body image issues going on or that the respondent has concerns about her weight and how she appears to others. Her statement is not, however, occurring in a vacuum, but rather in a cultural context that puts a premium on thinness and self-control, particularly for women. So here you can start to make some links between the respondent’s self-concept and the larger culture in which she lives. Both what she has said and the way she has said it are important. Such statements may also provide the interviewer with probes to be pursued later or even at a different session with the respondent (as to not interrupt the flow of what the narrator wants to say). The second thing to actively listen for is what Jack terms “metastatements” (p. 21). These are places in the interview where the interviewee will stop and double-back to critically reflect on something they just said. They have made a statement, but now they are going to return to that statement in order to comment on it. This may illustrate a change in their thought process, a moment of self-realization or discomfort with how their statement may have been perceived and thus an internal desire to support their words.

Meta-statements alert us to the individual’s awareness of discrepancy within the self—or between what is expected and what is being said. They inform the interviewer about what categories the individual is using to monitor her thoughts, and allow observation of how the person socializes feelings or thoughts according to certain norms (p. 22).

For example, someone who has just made a comment about race may then double-back to clarify, explain, or support their original statement. This kind of cycling back may be a reflection of historically specific societal norms, such as appearing nonracist, and the interviewee’s awareness that they may have violated those norms in the eyes of the interviewer. Such statements are then one potential space for understanding how individuals feel about and adjust to societal norms, values, and expectations.

Finally, we must learn to listen to the “logic of the narrative,” paying particular attention to consistencies and contradictions and “recurring” themes (p. 22). More specifically, the way that themes are brought into the person’s narrative and their relation to other themes is important data. The placing of emphasis through recurring themes and both consistencies and conflicts within statements can give us insight into the logic the person is using to tell their story. For example, what assumptions do they hold to be true that inform how they interpret their own life experiences? What thoughts, beliefs, values, and moral judgments are underlying their interpretive and narrative processes?

Beyond using these listening techniques, Anderson and Jack (1991) also encourage researchers to learn to listen to themselves, and, in our experience, this is a critical part of the listening process in oral history. As you listen to the narrator you must listen to your own internal monitor—your feelings, confusions, questions. These are areas that may require clarification, elaboration, and exploration. You do not want to interrupt the narrator to answers these questions; remember, your primary job is that of listener. However, when pauses and transitions arise you may want to cycle back and probe based on the various thoughts and feelings you experienced while listening. It is a fine line that through practice you will learn how to navigate. On the one hand, to be an active listener in this collaborative narrative process you can’t just “be in your own head” having an internal conversation; however, you want to be listening to your own gut reactions while you listen to the respondent.

When we choose to practice oral history we are making a commitment to understanding meaning from the perspective of those being interviewed. We want to know what they think, how they feel, how they filter and interpret in the ways that they do. In order to do so, we become highly engaged listeners. So far, we have been talking about listening to the content of what a respondent is saying—the main kinds of statements that emerge as people tell their stories. As important as the substantive content of oral history narratives is the form through which people tell their stories. In other words, the narrative style. In this vein, the nuances in the way a person narrates her story are also an important data source. We recommend that you come up with a consistent way of transcribing data that allows you to note pauses, laughter, the raising or lowering of voice, tonal changes, the elongation of words, and so forth. All of this can alert you to where a person places meaning and how that person is feeling at a particular point in the interview. Putting such remarks in italics, bold print, parentheses, etc. is an easy way to retain this valuable data in your initial transcript. We will discuss this more later when we talk about transcription and analysis.

In terms of listening, what is missing from their story, silences, absences, feelings for which there are no words, are also components to knowledge that emerge in oral history form. We will talk about narrative style more when we discuss storytelling and “talking” as a method of data building, but for now we will elaborate on what we mean by listening for “silences,” remembering that we are meaning-seekers.

What is left out of the narrator’s story can give us insight into their struggles and conflicts, such as differences between their explicit and implicit attitudes, but also the impact of the larger culture on the person’s biography and retelling of that biography. Clear omissions, for example, may indicate that there is a disjuncture between what the person thinks and what they feel is appropriate to say. This may be the result of their perception of social norms and values or their feeling that they are in violation of normative ways of thinking, feeling, and behaving. For many researchers who practice oral history, such as feminist and multicultural researchers, the research project is imbued with an intent to access subjugated voices—the perspectives and people who are forced to the peripheries of a given social order. In this circumstance, listening for silences may also indicate that the categories and concepts we use to interpret and explain our life experiences do not in fact reflect the full range of experiences out there. The silence therefore indicates something about the culture at large and a gap between ways of framing experience and the experience of the individual. In other words, culture may not be providing everyone with appropriate tools with which they fully and freely express what meaning something has for them. For many, this is the very reason why listening to the voices of individuals, particularly those long excluded from the production of culture, is imperative.
At the heart of the collaborative process of data collection is both an emphasis on listening and talking. The form talking takes is that of storytelling and narrative.

End of part II.

Source:
The Practice of Qualitative Research by Sharlene J. Nagy Hesse-Biber and Patricia L. (Lina) Leavy (Aug 9, 2005), Part II: Methods of Data Collection, Chapter 5: ORAL HISTORY: A Collaborative Method of (Auto)Biography Interview



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