Participatory Oral History Story Collection
What kinds of questions get asked in an interview?
There is no set list of questions and no need to prepare beforehand other than conducting a short pre-interview phone call. Because we use a format called “life-course oral history” we allow the narrator (interviewee) to share whatever stories about their lives they are comfortable sharing. The interview typically follows the timeline of a person’s life starting from their birth and working their way to the present moment. Common questions to start off might be “where were you born? What was your family structure like as a child? What was school like?” Once we make our way through some baseline factual information we are usually curious about turning points in a person’s life - decisions about family, careers, and relationships.
HOW WILL MY INTERVIEW BE USED?
coLAB Arts is a non-profit arts based organization that seeks to create works of art that help communities promote equity, diversity, and inclusion. Most oral histories are generated as part of a specific project or theme. Our goal is to get as many perspectives of those communities as possible to generate new works of art and educational materials that creates more livable, sustainable, and exciting communities.
Example of coLAB Arts Projects Created from Participatory Oral History Research:
Trueselves: Stories of the Transgender, Gender Diverse, and Allied Communities of NJ
Life, Death, Life Again: Stories of Children Sentenced to Die in Prison
coLAB Arts Story Capture
“Story Capture” is our way of describing our process of seeking out, collecting and archiving stories that are important to the communities we work with.
coLAB Arts story capture strives to provide:
1) Diversity of Narrative
2) Quality Experience for Participants
3) Reverberating Community Impact
What are the steps of an interview?
1) coLAB Arts pinpoints individuals whose life experiences connect with a specific project theme.
2) A coLAB Arts interviewer contacts the narrator to conduct a pre-interview conversation (30-minutes) to get a little background information and to explain the process.
3) The coLAB Arts interviewer and the narrator sit down for an in-person life course oral history (average 2-3 hours)