earticle

영어

This article discusses “oral history” in terms of memory rather than “history” in order to revive its critical meaning to the conventional field of history. Oral history occupied a position in the field of history with the trend of “writing history from below.” The premise of oral history is that the stories told preserve certain experiences. However, the significance of the oral history methodology lies in the deliberations on “memory” rather than in the hasty fusion with historiography. When oral history is treated in terms of memory, its ‘afterwardsness’ and fluidity can be discussed. Oral history collects unstable memories that can be twisted according to the present situations of the storyteller. When we deliberate upon what is remembered and what is forgotten, as well as why something is told while something else remains in silence as a secret, we will be able to see that oral history is not about recording the past but about reviewing the past from the present position. Oral history, experience, and historiography are in dissonance. From reading that dissonance, we can reveal the alternative meaning of oral history, which is composed of unstable memories constructed in the “periphery” of historiography. “Oral history” is a constant criticization that renders what is familiar unfamiliar.