OHA Biennial Conference 2024
The Power of Oral History—Risks, Rewards & Responsibilities
21-24 November 2024, Trinity College, University of Melbourne
Oral history can be powerful in so many ways. Interviews generate potent emotions. Recordings capture the power of voice as well as the power of silence. Multimedia productions engage and connect new audiences with the complexities of the past. Fundamentally, oral history transforms the historical archive and challenges mainstream histories. It can shift traditional power dynamics, bring forth new voices and perspectives, reshape policies and politics, and shake up old certainties. Yet those possibilities come with risk as well as reward. Recording sensitive subjects is never easy. Creating an oral history production takes time, skill and care, and sometimes goes wrong. Imaginative re-uses of oral history recordings can raise ethical and legal complexities. And oral histories that disrupt accepted narratives can generate pain and conflict, in families, communities and nations.
Conference sub-themes may include, but are not limited to:
- Indigenous oral histories and oral traditions
- Oral history, culture and language
- Interpreting memory in oral history
- Transgressing boundaries with oral history
- Documenting diverse voices with oral history
- Histories of protest, activism and rights
- Contested memories and histories
- Oral histories of working lives and social class
- Migrant and refugee oral history
- Gender and oral history
- LGBTIQA+ oral histories
- Ethical issues in oral history
- Technology and oral history
- Archiving and oral history
- Giving voice to history through music
- Oral histories of family, community or place
- Creative uses of oral history recordings
- Oral history in galleries, libraries and museums
All proposals to present at the conference must be submitted using the conference EasyChair submission portal (see below).
CFP deadline 1 April 2024.
We welcome proposals for presentations in a variety of formats and media, including standard paper presentations (typically 20 minutes); short ‘lightning’ accounts of work in progress (typically 5 minutes); participatory workshops; performances; or thematic panels comprising several presenters. Presentations should involve oral history. Contact the Chair of the Conference Program Committee, Professor Alistair Thomson, (alistair.thomson@monash.edu) if you would like to discuss the format or focus of your presentation before you submit it.
Proposals for presentations / papers / panels / posters should be no more than 200 words (single space, 12 point font in Times New Roman) and must include at the top of the page, your name, institutional affiliation (if applicable), postal address, phone number and email address, the title for your presentation/panel, the sub-theme/s your work best connects to, and the presentation format (standard 20 minute paper; 5 minute ‘lightning’ account of work in progress; thematic panel; performance; or participatory workshop).
Presenters will be encouraged to submit papers to the refereed, online Oral History Australia journal, Studies in Oral History.
Submission
New proposals should be uploaded to EasyChair via this link. To use this online conference management system, you will need to create an author account (a simple process) and then submit your proposal by uploading it as a PDF document (with full details as listed above).
If you are unfamiliar with EasyChair, please follow the instructions available via a downloadable PDF on the conference website. If you are unable to use this system, please email your proposal as a PDF attachment to ohavictoria2024@gmail.com
Further information
For conference information or to join the conference mailing list, email our Oral History Victoria hosts at ohavictoria2024@gmail.com or go to the conference website at https://oralhistoryaustralia.org.au/biennial-conference-2024
