ID - 12707480 TI - Narrating our pasts : the social construction of oral history PY - 1998 VL - 22 SN - 0521484634 052140133X 1316041565 0511621884 9780521401333 9780511621888 9780521484633 PB - Cambridge : Cambridge university press, DB - UniCat KW - Mondelinge geschiedenis KW - History as a science KW - Sociology of culture KW - Oral history KW - Histoire orale KW - Sociological aspects KW - Cross-cultural studies KW - Aspect sociologique KW - Etudes transculturelles KW - Oral history. KW - #SBIB:39A2 KW - #SBIB:93H1 KW - History KW - Oral biography KW - Oral tradition KW - Antropologie: methoden en technieken KW - Geschiedwetenschap. Hulpwetenschappen van de geschiedenis KW - Methodology KW - Social Sciences KW - Anthropology UR - https://www.unicat.be/uniCat?func=search&query=sysid:12707480 AB - This study looks at how oral histories are constructed and how they should be interpreted, and argues for a deeper understanding of their oral and social characteristics. Oral accounts of past events are also guides to the future, as well as being social activities in which tellers claim authority to speak to particular audiences. Like written history and literature, orality has its shaping genres and aesthetic conventions and, likewise, has to be interpreted through them. The argument is illustrated through a wide range of examples of memory, narration and oral tradition, including many from Europe and the Americas, and with a particular focus on oral histories from the Jlao Kru of Liberia, with whom Elizabeth Tonkin has carried out extensive research. Tonkin also draws on and integrates the insights of a range of other disciplines, such as literary criticism, linguistics, history, psychology, and communication and cultural studies. ER -