Ghosts in the archives : exploring the challenge of reusing memories

Recording the memories of people’s unique life experiences is a powerful research methodology. Its resurgence after the Second World War demonstrates that transmission of memories, such as from Holocaust survivors, provides a connection for people in the present with the past, offering hope that issues such as injustices are not forgotten (Green & Troupe, 1999). Luisa Passerini argued that oral history is more than memories; it is predominantly an expression and representation of culture which requires the oral historian to not only understand the literal narrations but memory, ideology and subconscious desires (Passerini,1979). Like other methodologies, oral history has undergone paradigm shifts and will continue to do so in response to expanding areas of research. This paper explores the secondary analysis of archived oral history. Joanna Bornat argues that, despite it being a rapidly expanding area of research, debate about questions generated or processes involved have received little attention from oral historians. She also reminds us that the re-use of data is normal practice for historians (Bornat, 2008). This is supported by Corti, who argues that historians are not daunted by re-using material not familiar to them (Corti, 2006). Perhaps the very notion that it has become so taken-for-granted means that the re-use of data from oral histories is deserving of reconsideration. Scholars such as social scientists also have an interest in using archived oral history interviews to look at social processes over time, by connecting with earlier studies or reanalysing or replicating studies (Thomson, 2007, p. 571). Bornat raises questions about the effect of time passed, changing contexts for analysis, the construction of the original data and new ethical considerations, and argues that these questions need to be addressed (Bornat, 2003). When there is an intention to use oral history data from other sources, therefore, it is important to explore how the research method may be strengthened. McDonnell asks the question, ‘[W]hat responsibility lies upon the historian as traumatic human experiences are reified, codified and sent into the academic ether, to be picked up, quoted, referenced, theorised and detached from their source in a specific political reality?’ (McDonnell, 2005, p. 127). It is not always easy for researchers recording oral histories to strike a balance between the imperatives of writing history and the moral obligations of protecting their sources. The following case study highlights this dilemma.