Practicing Oral History with Military and War Veterans

This book focuses predominantly on conducting oral history with people of recent wars and conflicts. It serves as an invitation to community scholars, students, oral historians and families of veterans to participate in the oral history process and to embrace methodology for conducting oral history projects and interviewing war veterans.

Practicing Oral History with Military and War Veterans focuses predominantly on conducting oral history with men and women of recent wars and military conflicts.

The book provides a structured methodology for building interest and trust among veterans to conduct interviews, design oral history projects, and archive and use these oral history interviews. It includes background on the evolution of veterans oral history, the nuts and bolts of interviewing, ethical guidelines, procedures, and the overall value of veterans oral history. The methodology emphasizes how memory evolves over the years - when a veteran becomes more distant from the events of war, the experiences become individualized and personalized for each veteran based on location, time, place, and purpose of their service. The book also aims to improve understanding of the personal, ethical, and psychological issues involved in listening compassionately to veterans' stories that may contain issues of trauma, gender, socio-economics, race, dis/ability, and ethnicity. *Practicing Oral History with Military and War Veterans* is an invitation to community scholars, students, oral historians, and families of veterans to actively participate in the oral history process and to embrace methodology that may help with designing and conducting oral history projects and interviewing war veterans.

Autorentext

Sharon D. Raynor, Dean of the School of Humanities & Social Sciences and Endowed Professor of English & Digital Media at Elizabeth City State University, is the co-editor of Teaching Race in Perilous Times: Racial Discourse in the College Classroom (SUNY) and Executive Producer for the documentary film, In the Face of Adversity: The Service and Legacy of African American WWII Veterans.

Inhalt

Preface

Section I: Introduction

Chapter 1: My Story

Chapter 2: Overview and Evolution of Military and Veterans Oral History

Chapter 3: Personal Connections to Veterans Oral History

Section II: Issues Common in Veterans Oral History

Chapter 4: Best Practices and Ethical Guidelines

Chapter 5: Race, Ethnicity, Class, Dis/Ability and Gender in the Military [among Veterans]

Chapter 6: Trust, Trauma and the Human Factor

Chapter 7: The Nature of Memory and Silence

Section III: Conducting a Veterans Oral History Project

Chapter 8: Project Design and Preparation

Chapter 9: Recording Techniques

Chapter 10: Interviewing Techniques

Chapter 11: Interviewing War Veterans

Section IV: After the Interview

Chapter 12: Transcribing and Archiving

Chapter 13: Using Veterans Oral History

Chapter 14: The Value of Veterans Oral History

Chapter 15: Reflections

Appendix

Appendix A: Sample Interview Questionnaire

Appendix B: Veteran's Biographical Information Form

Appendix C: Interview's Release Agreement Form

Appendix D: Veteran's Release Agreement Form

Appendix E: Photograph & Memorabilia Log

Appendix F: Interview Summary Form

Appendix G: Project Design Form

Appendix H: Veterans Organizations

Appendix I: Oral History Organizations

Selected Bibliography

Index