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Abstract
In May 2009, Concordia University’s Institute for Community Development (ICD), the Centre for Oral History and Digital Storytelling, and L’Abri en Ville, in Montreal, Canada, organized a collaborative oral history workshop. As part of the ICD’s Open University program, it aimed to give a group of adults, several of whom were coping with mental illnesses, an opportunity to learn about this craft in a setting that was free of the barriers that tend to divide communities and universities. In many respects, facilitating this oral history workshop, whether it was in an organizational, teaching, learning, or support capacity, was similar to conducting an oral history interview. For it to be effective, everyone who was involved in this experiment had to trust the process, committing to sharing authority and a flexible approach. This article offers a reflection on the sustained conversation that took place throughout this workshop and a discussion about the ways that it impacted its facilitators, teachers, and participants.
Notes
Editor's Note: It is the editorial policy of The Oral History Review to refer to individuals by their family name upon second reference rather than their given name. However, at the insistence of the authors this policy is not adhered to within this essay.
1 We would like to thank members of L’Abri en Ville and staff at COHDS and the ICD for supporting us and we are grateful to Steven High for his help in implementing the first Open University Oral History Workshop. We also benefited from the thoughtful and supportive feedback that was provided by Anna Sheftel, Lorraine O’Donnell, Lance Evoy, Steven High, Glenn Whitman, Joy Parr, and two anonymous reviewers on early drafts of this article. Finally, we are indebted to those who participated in the two Open University workshops. By including us in their conversations, they undoubtedly taught us far more about collaborative learning than we taught them about oral history. Throughout this article, we attempt to weave community and university voices together in a cohesive narrative that reflects the collaborative process we experienced. Each author took responsibility for drafting a section of the article, which was then circulated to the other collaborators for their feedback. Stacey and Erin took the lead when it came to drawing these contributions together and making revisions for an academic audience. Drafts were distributed in this manner on five separate occasions, until we felt that we had found an accessible collaborative voice and touched on the main points of interest to each of us. Upon completion, the article was circulated one last time for authors’ comments and, ultimately, approval.
2 Among its most notable contributions, the ICD has created an internationally renowned summer program in community development, a series of learning circles on engagement and leadership, and the University of the Streets Café, which initiates important conversations in public spaces around Montreal. For more information, see: http://instdev.concordia.ca/index.php (accessed March 29, 2011).
3 Developed by Earl Shorris in New York City’s southeast side, these courses offer an impressive example of how acquiring learning skills through critical reflection and engagement can significantly change the lives of poor and working-class folks. Specifically, these courses helped participants confront social marginalization while they imagined new ways of engaging with the world around them. See Earl Shorris, Riches for the Poor: The Clemente Course in the Humanities (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1997).
4 The Open University seeks to support alternative learning spaces for those who have not had the opportunity to access university education due to social barriers, such as poverty or mental illnesses. It is through programs like this that Concordia University determines how it can carry out research that is relevant to the wider community while supporting initiatives that counter social problems.
5 To learn more about COHDS, go to http://storytelling.concordia.ca/ (accessed March 29, 2011).
6 Steven High is Canada Research Chair in Public History and the co-director of COHDS: http://storytelling.concordia.ca/high/. He also leads the Montreal Life Stories project, a five-year project funded by a Community-University Research Alliance grant awarded by Canada’s Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council in 2007 that not only aims to conduct 500 interviews with people who came to Montreal from situations of large-scale violence but also plans to disseminate these stories through a wide range of academic, new media, and artistic means. The project is rooted in community collaboration and an in-depth, humanistic interviewing process. For more information, see: http://www.lifestoriesmontreal.ca/ (accessed March 29, 2011).
7 Unfortunately, this program depends upon faculty members who are willing to volunteer their time; other than a small stipend in the program’s second year, the university does not offer any financial support or professional recognition for it. Open University programming is, however, continually evolving and we are hopeful that changes will be made in the future. As part of Concordia’s School of Extended Learning, the ICD is, for instance, exploring the option of setting up a Fellows’ Program that would support professors who participate in this initiative. A Certificate in Community Engagement is also a goal, so as to formally recognize the work of adult learners.
8 Steven High’s inspirations include E. P. Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class (New York: Vintage Books, 1963) and Raphael Samuel’s History Workshops for working-class adult learners at Oxford’s Ruskin College. Certainly, Samuel’s inclusion of ordinary folks in the research process and the ways he tried to redistribute the authority and power of the trained historian is enviable. See early editions of the History Workshop Journal to learn more about Samuel’s important initiatives and Dave Russell, “Raphael Samuel, History Workshop and the Value of Democratic Scholarship,” Popular Music 16 (May 1997): 217–20. Other scholars who write about working-class adult education include: James Green, Taking History to Heart: The Power of the Past in Building Social Movements (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2000); Steven High, “Sharing Authority in the Writing of Canadian History: The Case of Oral History,” in Contesting Clio’s Craft: New Directions and Debates in Canadian History, ed. Christopher Dummitt and Michael Dawson (London: Institute for the Study of the Americas, 2009), 25.
9 To maintain a relative degree of confidentiality, all of our workshop participants have requested that they be identified by their first names only throughout this article.
10 Anonymous Participant, Open University Oral History Workshop Questionnaire, 2008.
11 Jerome, conversation with Eleanor, April 2010.
12 Eleanor, conversation with authors, May 27, 2010.
13 To view these photographs and listen to the stories about them, go to http://www.labrienville.org/and follow the L’Abri en Ville Community link on the left side of the webpage (accessed March 29, 2011).
14 For more on “sharing authority,” see Michael Frisch, A Shared Authority: Essays on the Craft and Meaning of Oral and Public History (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1990); “Shared Authority,” Special Feature in the Oral History Review 30 (2003); Katharine C. Corbett and Howard S. Miller, “A Shared Inquiry into Shared Inquiry,” Public Historian 28 (2006): 15–38; Steven High, Lisa Ndejuru, and Kristen O’Hare, ed., “Special Issue of Sharing Authority: Community-University Collaboration in Oral History, Digital Storytelling, and Engaged Scholarship,” Journal of Canadian Studies 43 (Winter 2009).
15 Alessandro Portelli, “What Makes Oral History Different?,” in The Oral History Reader, Second Edition, ed. Robert Perks and Alistair Thomson (New York: Routledge, 2006), 32–42.
16 Audrey, conversation with authors, May 27, 2010.
17 The ethics protocol for this project can be accessed at: http://storytelling.concordia.ca/oralhistory/resources/tips.html. It includes a discussion on sharing authority, mitigating harm, obtaining informed consent, participants’ rights throughout the interview process, researchers’ responsibilities concerning matters of confidentiality, accessibility of the recordings and/or transcripts and the recruitment of interviewees (accessed March 29, 2011).
18 After each workshop session, Stacey and Erin reflected on happenstance in the classroom. Stacey, debriefing with Erin, May 6, 2009.
19 Project 55 is an audio tour that takes listeners through the heart of Montreal, along St. Laurent Boulevard on the Bus 55 bus route. An educational experience that is focused on the narratives of six Montrealers who have deep connections to this area, this tour provides listeners with an understanding of the different immigrant communities (Chinese, Portuguese, European Jewish, and Italian) that settled in this area. For more information, see: http://storytelling.concordia.ca/workingclass/WebsiteSections/01Projects/2006/project55/index.html (accessed March 29, 2011).
20 Erin, debriefing with Stacey, May 20, 2009.
21 This photograph is from Stacey Zembrzycki’s personal collection.
22 For a related conversation, see Anna Sheftel and Stacey Zembrzycki, “Only Human: A Reflection on the Ethical and Methodological Challenges of Working with ‘Difficult’ Stories,” Oral History Review 37 (Summer to Fall 2010): 191–241.
23 Anonymous Participant, L’Abri en Ville Oral History Workshop Questionnaire, 2009.
24 Stacey, conversation with authors, May 27, 2010.
25 Eleanor, conversation with authors, May 27, 2010.
26 Ibid.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Stacey Zembrzycki
Stacey Zembrzycki is a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada postdoctoral fellow in the History Department at Concordia University where she is also affiliated with the Centre for Oral History and Digital Storytelling. Her first book, tentatively entitled Sharing Authority with Baba: Wrestling with Memories of Community, is under review with the University of British Columbia Press; to learn more about this project go to: www.sudburyukrainians.ca. Zembrzycki's current research uses multiple, life story oral history interviews to understand the postwar narratives and educational activism of child Holocaust survivors in Montreal
Erin Jessee
Erin Jessee, a graduate of Concordia University's Interdisciplinary Humanities Doctoral Program, is a Fonds québécois de recherche sur la société et la culture postdoctoral fellow at the School for International Studies at Simon Fraser University
Eleanor Beattie
Eleanor Beattie is a graduate of Concordia University's Doctoral program in Communication Studies. She is also the founding president of L’Abri en Ville
Audrey Bean
Audrey Bean is a member of the Board of Directors of L’Abri en Ville and a long time volunteer
Mireille Landry
Mireille Landry is a program coordinator at the Institute for Community Development, School of Extended Learning, at Concordia University, where she is responsible for Open University courses in the community and Problem-based Service Learning University
Sandra Baines
Sandra Baines is the president of the Board of Directors of L’Abri en Ville and a long time volunteer