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Book Review
| Anna Green and Megan Hutching (eds), Remembering: Writing Oral History, Auckland University Press, Auckland, 2004. pp. vii + 182. NZ $44.95 paper.
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| In the late 1970s, historian Judith Binney and photographer Gillian Chapman visited the family and former followers of the Tuhoe prophet, Rua Kenana Hepetipa, who at his death in 1937 proclaimed he would be resurrected as the Messiah. Their aim was simply to ask members of the community to name and identify unknown individuals who featured in a series of photographs taken in the early twentieth century. But the physical presence of the photographs 'unlocked memory', eliciting sharp emotions of 'pain, grief and pleasure' as the past was revisited, and dialogue was opened with Maori ancestors. In a further intervention, Binney commenced a long-term oral history program among the Tuhoe community. Her research resulted in three books (all regarded as significant in the scholarly field of Maori studies), which argued that distinct and often contradictory Maori oral narratives of historical events co-exist alongside accepted, written versions of New Zealand history. The very act of publication has meant that oral histories once circulated within a particular and small community are now widely disseminated and shared within the public domain. Along similar lines, while Maori oral testimony is central to claims for restorative justice presented before the Waitangi Tribunal, that very process transforms key narratives of grievance. |
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Binney's reflective chapter on how Maori narratives are formed, maintained and change over time leaves no doubt about the politics of history and remembering. It is a highlight of an important new collection, edited by Anna Green and Megan Hutching, which surveys the 'state of play' of oral history within community and academic history projects in New Zealand. As Green outlines in her introductory piece, the development of oral history in New Zealand as a recognised historical methodology has been highly successful among public and community historians. Support for oral history is offered by a professional organisation, the National Oral History Association of New Zealand, established in 1986; a national oral history collection is held at the Alexander Turnbull Library; and a national fund, endowed through a gift of $1 million from the Australian government to mark the New Zealand sesquicentennial, seeks to expand recordings. |
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However, Green maintains, little scholarly attention has been directed to the interpretative analysis of oral history sources. And, perhaps surprisingly given the growth of interest from the 1970s in oral history in Australia, Europe and the United States, there is a dearth of academic engagement in New Zealand with the large body of international literature on oral history practice and memory studies. This can be explained, although only partially, by the distinctive demarcation between European written histories and Maori oral narratives that has underpinned much New Zealand historiography. |
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Remembering: Writing Oral History is thus a collection with a clear and fervent mission. Contributors (many based at universities) were invited to consider oral history as a specific field of historical inquiry, with its own theoretical and methodological approaches. The core of the book consists of seven case studies which demonstrate how oral history can uncover the pasts of New Zealanders, especially those of women. Jane Moodie explores the memories of men and women who settled on ex-servicemen's allotments in the Waikite Valley during the 1950s. Through stories that balance the national myths of the triumphant pioneer and the helpmate wife with other experiences of farming and family life, Moodie concludes that these oral histories lead us to a moral world, where the cultural values of New Zealand rural communities are expressed. Another community study, in this case conducted by Cathy O'Shea-Miles with women living in Hamilton's 'Irishtown', makes a similar claim that oral history provides an unique insight into the transference of cultural knowledges and identities across generations. Kay Edwards interviewed five women who were active in the Te Aroha Amateur Dramatic Society, and her lively chapter uses life-story research to examine how amateur theatre companies operated, and the outlet they provided for women's creativity in the post-World War II years. |
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In compiling the history of Auckland's Mater Hospital, Michael Belgrave found that those who had participated in hospital life recalled the past through descriptions of sounds, smells and visual images. 'This vivid and multisensory recreation' enables the historian to use other sources, such as photographs and letters, in more meaningful ways. Alison Laurie takes up the theme of concealment, and the gap between the public and private self, in close readings of two oral histories recorded with older lesbians. On a very different trajectory, Juanita Ketchel applies oral history to the 'problem' of childhood violence and resilience. She argues that as a 'research model' its recognition of individual experience and personal strength is important within mental health promotion. |
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These close studies are preceded by an excellent discussion by Anna Green on interpretative frameworks for 'unpacking' oral narratives so as to understand relationships between the self and social groups, and to appreciate the emotional and imaginative dimensions of story-telling. The book concludes with three shorter pieces on the ethics of oral history, the challenges of transcribing and editing oral material, and the uses of the past in Maori oral histories from the paepae, the place on the marae from where elders speak on formal occasions. Rememberings is an unusually coherent and focussed collection, and its call for New Zealand historians to be open to the richness of oral sources is — judging by the very best of its chapters — compelling. |
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| University of Melbourne |
KATE DARIAN-SMITH | |
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