Rebecca Jones | Blended Voices: Crafting a Narrative from Oral History Interviews | Oral History Review, 31.1

Blended Voices: Crafting a Narrative from Oral History Interviews

by Rebecca Jones

Abstract Editing oral history interviews for publication is part of a joint construction of a narrative by both the narrator and the oral historian. In this article, editing oral history is discussed through the case study, Blended Voices, a book of oral history interviews with people who migrated to Australia between 1950 and 2000 and now live in the southeastern suburbs of Melbourne, Australia. The degree of editing is dependent on the purpose of the project. The joint construction of oral history in this project involved extensive editing of the transcript by the author and review by the narrator. This was necessary to create a document that was readily accessible to a general audience and still conveyed the meaning of the stories. This construction was influenced by power dynamics inherent in any oral history and involved balancing the historian's ethical responsibilities to the narrator, the audience, and to the content of the narratives.

Between the oral interview and the written manuscript is a long, meandering journey in which a narrative is crafted. The oral history interview is the starting point in the process of creating the narrative, but the journey continues through transcribing and editing to publication. Editing the transcript for publication is the subject of this article. All historians and researchers who publish oral history interviews or extracts from interviews face choices and dilemmas about the way to edit an interview for publication. Presented here is a case study of one approach to editing oral history. I will discuss some of the issues encountered in the journey from interview transcript to publication of Blended Voices (2001,)¹ a book based on oral history interviews with migrants living in the southeastern suburbs of Melbourne, Australia. Rather than delving into the intricacies of punctuation, grammar, and sentence manipulation,² I will explore some of the choices faced when "translating" the verbatim transcript into a published manuscript. The principle that motivated these choices is an understanding of editing as part of the joint construction of a narrative by both the narrator and the writer/oral historian in which a public text is created from a private one-to-one conversation.³ The joint construction is, in effect, a relationship between narrator and writer influenced by the power relationships inherent in oral history and governed by ethical responsibilities. In editing oral history, we, as authors, have to balance responsibilities to the narrator, to the audience, and to the content of the stories. The decisions we make in balancing these responsibilities are dependent on the purpose of the project.

While much discussion has occurred about the important process of transcription, much less attention has focused on the practice of editing, extracting, refining, and rearranging the transcript for publication. Michael Frisch remarks, "Given [its] importance, it is surprising—or perhaps not so surprising—that the process of editing transcripts for publication is shrouded in mystery."⁴ While attention continues to focus on transcription, which shares many issues with editing,⁵ others have began to explore more fully the importance of the editing process in the production of oral history and its implications for the relationships between the interviewer, narrator, and audience.⁶ There is no definitive formula for creating a written manuscript from oral interviews; a different project may require different decisions to be made. I present here just one approach to oral history, in the hope that the decisions we made and the insights we gained may assist other people undertaking oral history projects to engage with the challenges of editing oral history for publication, which can only enhance the practice of oral history. The historian acting as interviewer, editor, and writer is common in many oral history projects; therefore, throughout this article I have assumed that the same person or people are performing these multiple roles.

All published oral histories have undergone some form of editing, extraction, and condensing. The dilemma for the writer of a published text is to what degree is it appropriate to edit the words of a narrator? Some historians assert that editing unnecessarily increases the distance between the narrator and the reader,⁷ and some even argue that reworking segments of an oral history interview to appear in standard English is tantamount to an "act of vandalism."⁸ Baum asserts, derisively, that heavy editing can result in "a glowing autobiography in the style of a high school graduation speech."⁹ While faithfully reproducing the spoken word in a textual form may be desirable in the transcribing phase, and appropriate for certain oral histories that are not published or are aimed at an academic audience or a particular cultural group, I argue that this is inappropriate for interviews or extracts that are published for general readership. When publishing for a general audience, extensive editing is necessary to create a document that is not only readable and accessible, but also conveys the flavor of the experiences.

In order to discuss editorial issues, I will use examples from our book Blended Voices, which tells the stories of thirty-nine people who have migrated to Australia since the Second World War, and who now live in the southeastern suburbs of Melbourne. We recruited participants who loosely represented the diversity in Kingston in terms of countries of origin, time of arrival, reasons for migration, current age, and age at migration, with the number restricted only by the project budget. Participants come from twenty-four countries throughout Europe, Asia, Africa, North and South America, the Pacific, and the Middle East. Some came to Australia as refugees; others came to marry or to join family members; and some came to begin a new job or to seek better economic prospects. We included all of those interviewed in the final product. We present the majority of the book as a series of first person narratives, with the emphasis on experiences, feelings, and perceptions about leaving their former country, traveling to Australia, and arriving and settling in a new country. Black and white portrait photographs of the participants illustrate most of the stories. An introductory chapter places the personal stories in the context of the history of migration to Melbourne and Australia and settlement patterns in southeast Melbourne. Most of the book is written in English, except for ten of the stories, which are reproduced both in English and in the native language of the narrator. These native languages were Spanish, Croatian, Vietnamese, Chinese, Arabic, Greek, Italian, Amharic, French, and Cambodian.

Editing Blended Voices

Although the nuts and bolts of editing is not the focus of this article, I will briefly describe the style of editing used in Blended Voices, and then discuss the reasons we made these choices. The project began with extensive consultation with community groups to recruit participants. Prior to interviewing, all participants signed a standard oral history consent form allowing interviewing, transcribing, editing, and publishing. The process we used to turn the taped oral interview into a published text involved four steps. First, I created a typed verbatim transcript of the interview. Second, I edited the transcript. Third, participants reviewed the edited story, and in some cases altered it. Finally, a professional copy editor reviewed the entire book and corrected punctuation and typing mistakes, and made minor changes in phraseology. The second and third phases of this editing process are the focus of this article.

Editing Blended Voices involved extensive condensing and manipulation of the text. I removed from the story passages that did not relate directly to the issue of migration and settlement. I removed my questions and comments, and the narrators' false starts and crutch words ("um," "you know," "basically"). I reordered phrases so that the same themes appeared together and cut repetitions. I also inserted punctuation and where necessary, modified sentence structure and applied standard grammar. I introduced paragraphs into what, in some cases, was a seamless narrative. I strived to retain some idiosyncrasies of speech and where possible reproduced the lilt and cadence of the participants' speech by sentence length. Although we rendered the resulting stories in something close to Standard English, they almost always contained only the words of the narrator (except for some linking words, pronouns, and prepositions which were added to improve readability). This was a similar process to that described by Wendy Lowenstein:

[We] developed a way to handle material—heightened speech. We were proud of it if at the end of a page we hadn't added a word, except perhaps the odd pronoun. We didn't add but we certainly selected, worked to a high, to a dramatic point, a word or phrase which captured what the person wanted to say.¹⁰

I will illustrate this editing style with a passage from Peter's story. Peter is a Vietnamese "boat person" who came to Australia in the early 1980s. The first section presented here is from the unedited verbatim transcript (Of course, as readers you are necessarily reading the version that has already undergone translation from spoken to written word):

In the 1980s Vietnamese not big enough. Hard for the people who come at that time because no one helped much. Now here people only talk Vietnamese language. It was very hard to find everything, even our food. Now big difference. Now some old people never say one word of English but they can live in here, doesn't matter. If they need to go hospital or somewhere they have interpreters. At the time we came, nothing. We just had to find everything by ourselves. Different food, different language. Now different. Everything we have in my country we have here. Everything, even small thing. Now if you have the big problem in the courts you have interpreter to explain things. Now if you go to hospital there are a lot of Vietnamese doctors.

The edited version as published in Blended Voices appears as follows:

In the 1980s, the Vietnamese community in Melbourne was quite small and it was hard because we didn't receive much help. We had to find out everything for ourselves. Australia had a different language, different food and it was difficult to buy Vietnamese food. Things are different now. Some people who live in Springvale don't speak a word of English. It doesn't matter. If they need to go to a hospital there are many Vietnamese doctors and if they have problems in the courts there are interpreters.¹¹

The four principles that governed the choices we made in editing Blended Voices were:

The purpose of the project and its audience
Enhancing communication with the audience
The responsibility of the author to the narrator
The necessity of allowing the narrator to review the edited version.

These principles will be discussed below.

The Purpose and the Audience

The purpose of the project and the motivations of the individuals and organizations involved created strong threads that consciously and unconsciously guided the project, influencing the form of the final product and the intended audience for the project, which in turn influenced the editing choices made.

Oral history projects take place in a particular political context. Most overtly, the purposes of the funding bodies (the Commonwealth Government Centenary of Federation fund and the City of Kingston local government) guided the project. When we began the project in 2000 and early 2001, the mainstream Australian political climate emphasized "multiculturalism": toleration, inclusion, and migration as building and enriching Australia. Both the Commonwealth bureaucracy and local government espoused this political viewpoint, which is epitomized by the foreword to Blended Voices written by the local Member of Parliament:

[T]he people in this book chose to embrace their new country rather than retreat from it. At the same time, they never abandoned their own culture and Australia is a richer, more diverse country because of it.... It is a book that reminds us all of how lucky we are to live in Australia and of how much our country's migrants have contributed to its identity and prosperity. It is my privilege to represent an area that I believe epitomizes the benefits of multiculturalism. We can all learn and benefit from the cultures and experiences of each other.¹²

The title of the book and the content of its stories also reflect this attitude. The stories are not wholeheartedly celebratory in that they engage with personal challenges of migration and settlement and issues of discrimination and alienation, but they do emphasize the benefits of migration to the general Australian community.

My role in the project began when the City of Kingston employed me as a professional oral historian responsible for interviewing, editing, and writing; it ended with the book's publication in March 2001. My personal interest in the project developed because I am the daughter of migrants who came to Australia in the late 1960s. I grew up fascinated with issues of settlement, difference, and assimilation. Clearly, my preoccupations influenced the questions I asked (which is beyond the scope of this article to discuss) but also influenced the themes that I emphasized in editing the stories: personal experiences of leaving another country, traveling to Australia, and arriving and settling in a new country, including both challenges and benefits.

To a lesser extent, the motivations of the advisory committee set up to guide our research directed the purpose of the project. The advisory committee included five members of the local community, the local Migrant Welfare Officer and the elected local government representative as well as myself and the Cultural Officer (both employees of the City of Kingston). Four of the community representatives were migrants themselves (from Croatia, Egypt, Greece, and Britain), while the fifth was the daughter of Italian migrants. These members were volunteers who expressed an interest in the project at a public meeting. The committee's brief was unspecified, except to provide advice on the project. Most of the members were motivated as much by participation and as a way of getting involved with people in the local area as they were by issues in their own cultural communities. In practice, the members from Egyptian, Croatian, and Italian communities took on the role of "the voices of migrants" in the area and as such advised on promotion of the project and recruitment of participants as well as the production of the book. However, in reality they were the voices of established, middle aged, employed migrants who were fluent in English, had been in Australia for over ten years, and had extensive family and community contacts. Perhaps because of this, there was little dissention with the primary goals of the City of Kingston and discussion generally focused on the intricacies of the project rather than the overall product. Had some of the members of the group come from less established or more politicized migrant groups the result may have been different.

And the narrators—why did they agree to participate? Most participants wanted to share their stories, to have their stories told in public and put on the record. Many of the participants' stories also echoed the politics of multiculturalism. The stories they told show that although they had been changed by the experience of migrating to Australia, they believed that Australia too had been enriched by the arrival of the newcomers. Edna, one of the participants who came from India in the early 1970s, humorously echoes this: "We also noticed the silence in Melbourne restaurants in the 1970s. Now I go to restaurants and people are talking and shouting and don't give a hang. I think we naughty migrants have taught Australians how to shout together in restaurants."¹³

In addition to publicizing their personal stories, some participants such as Susan felt they were speaking on behalf of a group of people with similar experiences when she explained, "I had to fight and struggle to get my qualifications recognized. I think it is very tough that Australia encourages educated people to migrate and then makes us do odd jobs."¹⁴

The multiple motivations of the interested parties—the funding bodies, myself, the steering committee, and the participants—was best served by creating a published product that would be aimed at a general audience made up of both native English speakers and people more fluent in other languages. The audience was specifically people living in the vicinity of the City of Kingston (including the participants themselves) and more generally the people of Melbourne. Although the book was aimed at people with an interest in migration, including migrants themselves, it was not aimed at any particular cultural group, and indeed over thirty different cultural and sub-cultural group and twenty-five different language groups are represented in this book. Therefore, the majority of the stories are presented in English, the only language in common to all the participants and the general community as well. We produced the final product as a published text, which we believe is the most accessible and enduring product for the widest cross section of the population (despite prevalence of internet usage among the educated and the young).

Enhancing Communication with the Audience

Given the purpose of the project, editing was primarily about enhancing communication with the intended audience by balancing the content of the stories with the way the story was told. In editing Blended Voices, I emphasized the meaning but not necessarily the exact wording of the interview. Alessandro Portelli emphasizes that the orality of the source is central to its significance and that to ignore it is to lose the rhythm, inflection, tone intonation, and irregularities of the spoken word.¹⁵ Others have said that even changing one word or removing a pause can subtly alter the meaning of a statement.¹⁶ However, while some things are lost, others are gained, and as Frisch explains, editing verbatim text can clarify the way an idea is communicated: "The integrity of a transcript is best protected, in documentary use, by an aggressive editorial approach that does not shrink from substantial manipulation of the text."¹⁷ In written form, reproducing speech exactly as it is spoken can also be a barrier to communication rather than facilitating it. A general audience is not necessarily experienced in reading verbatim text. Verbatim is interesting and challenging to the reader but may, in fact, be self-defeating as the reader may lose the content at the expense of the style. Our goal was to produce text that would be easily readable and would enter readers' minds with some grace and fluency that would encourage people to read the whole book, not stop at the first story.

Only five of the thirty-nine participants of Blended Voices spoke English as a first language although many others communicated fluently in English, having learned it either in Australia or in their country of origin. Three participants spoke little English and relied on a translator during the interview. Therefore, some of the participants had limited mastery of English vocabulary, tense, grammar, and syntax. For these participants, given that the text was published mainly in English, editing and reworking the text enhanced rather than diminished the narrator's ability to communicate. This was confirmed by the comments of Noble, one of the participants and a member of the advisory committee. Noble is Egyptian and until he immigrated to Australia in the 1960s he spoke only French and Arabic. He was impatient with the idea of reproducing verbatim phraseology and advocated extensive manipulation of the wording of the transcript for publication. Although he now speaks English fluently, he reminded me that he was not emotionally attached to English, (as he was to Arabic and French) and explained that English was just a tool. Noble did not identify strongly with a literal translation of his words but valued fluent, articulate prose because he wanted his story presented "in the best possible way." It is interesting to note that some narrators may not be as protective of the verbatim speech as the researchers and writers might be.

The following example is from the story of Ahmed. Ahmed is a young man who spent his early childhood in Harar, Ethiopia, before migrating to Australia in 1992, at about twelve years of age. His first language is Amharic. This passage is taken from the unedited, verbatim transcript and illustrates the barriers to understanding created by faithful reproduction of the spoken word.

I'm going to drop out and work in a factory because I have no choice, no I didn't. I know I'm going to go through with it, and if I don't go through with it I keep questioning myself, how did he make it? I'm not stupid. I can think. I can communicate. There's nothing wrong with me, I could do it, I could just keep pushing myself. I never gave up in anything because life is experience, it is a test whether you pass or fail.

Following, is an edited version of the same section of Ahmed's story that was quoted above:

Sometimes I found things so difficult that I thought I would just drop out of school. But I didn't. I kept questioning myself and pushing myself. I knew I wasn't stupid and so I never gave up. Life is an experience and a test.¹⁸

Although Ahmed's phrasing has been considerably altered, we have remained true to the meaning of his story and communicated it in a way that is accessible to the intended audience.

Throughout the editing process, I was conscious of the power dimensions inherent in altering narrators' words because they do not conform to "standard English." I was reminded of the argument made by some oral historians, that preserving vernacular speech is an essential aspect of "grassroots" oral history and that rendering it in Standard English is to destroy the life and integrity of the narrative, as well as to patronize the participant.¹⁹ However, creating Blended Voices showed me that it could also be demeaning to reproduce, faithfully, poor grammar and incoherent syntax;²⁰ this would in fact magnify the social distances that the interviews are attempting to bridge.²¹ This is true of the native English-speaking participants as well as the participants who primarily spoke languages other than English. Editing Blended Voices became a means of making the stories of both the native and the non-native English speakers equally accessible to the reader. Reproducing the verbatim script (albeit in written form) may in fact take the story a full circle and render it less accessible to the majority of "lay" readers—both native and non-native English speakers.

Review by the Narrator

Once editing was complete and the narratives were rendered in a readable, coherent form, all of the edited stories were returned to the participants for review. Review by the narrator, which is standard practice now for many oral history projects, is the second crucial phase in the construction of a public text.²² While the editing process facilitates communication and clarification of the narrators' meaning, the review is necessary to reconcile the narrators' intended meaning with the meaning portrayed in the text. This is particularly important when many of the narrators were not speaking in their native language and misunderstandings were likely. Presenting the edited manuscript to the narrator for review also demonstrates the shared authority of the public document.²³ It demonstrates that they have some control and ownership over, not only the original story, but also the textual rendition. Giving the narrator an opportunity to check and change the edited manuscript also eases lingering doubts the editor may still possess about the ethics of editing a narrator's words (or at best ease the editor's conscience!).

All of the participants were aware at the beginning of the interview that the project would result in a published book, and indeed most of them, as has been noted, were motivated to join the project by a desire to "put their story on the record." However, it is only at the time of the review, when the narrator sees a manuscript that might be published, that he or she considers the story as a public text. This encourages them to reflect on the story they have told and modify, add, or subtract information. For example, in the recorded interview, Annie described immigrants from her cultural group as "the first group of brown people to come to Australia."²⁴ After reviewing the edited version of her story she requested that this statement be deleted, worrying that she would offend Aboriginal people whose ancestors had lived in Australia for many thousands of years. Similarly, during his interview, Kao told me that his mother was a "smart lady" who spoke four languages, but his father was more conservative and did not speak English. On reflection, Kao asked me to delete this information because he felt it was disrespectful to his father.

Leng is a Chinese-Cambodian who came to Australia from Cambodia when he was five years old. After reviewing his story, he composed a paragraph about racism and discrimination in Australia, which he included in his story:

Throughout my years in Australia, I've experienced a certain degree of discrimination and racism. This onslaught of discriminative behaviour is caused by individual people's arrogance and narrow-mindedness. Our way of thinking is dictated by our past experience, our culture and our personality. People do things differently because they were brought up that way. If people had to go through some of the things our family experienced, they would realize and understand that life is too short to hate and be narrow-minded.²⁵

Similarly, Banak considers himself a spokesperson for the Nuer community of Kingston. The passage he added to his story has a formality to it, like an expression of gratitude on behalf of his community.

I came to Australia to find a safe place for my children and to get an education. I hope to live in a peaceful manner without the cruelty and intimidation that I experienced in Sudan. I want to build a new life in Australia. This is a good country and I think we may choose to live here forever.²⁶

These examples show the value of the review in allowing the narrator to continue to construct the narrative. During the review, both Annie and Kao considered the effect their writing might have on others. Both chose to remove information and opinions they had given freely in the intimacy of the one-to-one interview, but which they felt might offend others if made public. Leng also considered his published story as an opportunity for gentle political action, to challenge and encourage readers to think about what it means to be Asian in Australia.

In the Blended Voices project, only six of the thirty-nine participants chose to amend their stories during the review. These participants were all highly educated or politically aware people. As Wilmsen observes, educated and privileged people are likely to be aware of the implications of their words being made public, and they are also experienced at communicating through writing. They may also understand editing as part of the essential process of telling their story. However, less well-educated people with a shakier command of English may be less conscious of the effects of their words and are less experienced with manipulating written words to create particular effects.²⁷ Layers of power and privilege may have influenced the narrators' willingness to amend their stories. I am educated, Australian-born, and had the assumed authority of the project co-ordinator, all reasons why less privileged participants may have been more willing to defer to my perceived authority. It is perhaps not surprising then that only one participant (a native English-speaking, retired journalist) commented on, or chose to change the actual wording, grammar, or phrasing used in the final text. Given that most participants were from non-English-speaking backgrounds and many were uneducated, they were probably also deferring to my perceived greater experience and knowledge of the English language. Therefore, although review by the narrator is an important phase of the construction of the narrative, for some participants control and ownership gained through review may be symbolic due to the power dynamics inherent in an oral history project. Does this mean that those participants who have little education or experience speaking and writing English will be led to reveal more than privileged participants about themselves or their associates?²⁸ This issue will be discussed in the next section.

The Responsibility of the Editor

While the review process gives participants an opportunity to modify, exclude, or add information to their story, how much responsibility should the editor take in removing material which may be relevant and interesting to the project, but which may damage the narrator? As Alistair Thomson observes, "oral histories 'from below' which have been written by researchers 'from above' can be disempowering for the objects of research."²⁹ Examples may include a participant revealing information (or even opinions) which may cause offense to their families or associates, may cause them to be ostracized from a cultural group, or may jeopardize their employment or their safety. How does the editor balance responsibility to the informant against responsibility to history and scholarship?³⁰

In the creation of Blended Voices, I favored protecting the narrator and ensuring that the published text revealed nothing that would bring significant harm to the narrators, their families, or their cultural communities. This decision was compatible with the aims of the project, which were to explore personal experiences of migration and tell a range of personal stories. As editor, I felt personally protective and responsible for the participants' well-being in the project and wanted the process to be a positive experience. Although we did not alter the "facts" of the story, we did delete passages which could cause harm or offense. One example is the case of "Katy."³¹ In the interview, Katy complained about her mother's conservatism and restrictive attitudes towards Katy's boyfriends. Katy's mother was religious and valued many of the cultural practices from her country of birth whereas Katy had spent some of her childhood and adolescence in Australia and held different values and assumptions. Although the issues Katy discussed were relevant to the project, illustrating cultural differences experienced by different generations of migrants, I felt that publicly exposing these issues could bring hurt to Katy's family and ultimately to Katy herself. I therefore deleted this discussion from the final story. When I drew attention to this omission during the review, she agreed to its exclusion remarking cheerfully, "sometimes I get a bit carried away." Katy is an Australian-reared, native English speaker who is currently pursuing a Doctor of Philosophy degree, and therefore many of the power issues mentioned above could be assumed to be ameliorated. However, did she too see the shared authority of the narrative as being primarily mine as author?

Different decisions may be made when the purpose of the project is to interpret or analyze particular historical facts or events and where "truth" rather than "subjectivity" is paramount.³² In that case, presenting historically accurate information may be more important than presenting the narrator in a positive light. The issue is also more problematic when the editor/historian's interpretive conclusions strongly contradict the narrator's position—as is discussed by Kathleen Blee in her research into women of the Ku Klux Klan.³³ Different decisions may also be made in the rare occasions where the participants' associates are unlikely to have access to the published text, such as Shostak's story of Nisa the !Kung bush woman.³⁴ Given that the purpose of Blended Voices was to present personal stories, the responsibility of the writer/editor lays first with the narrator. Although this may be seen to be wresting control from the narrator it is in fact acknowledging that while we may espouse ideals of shared ownership of the product, in reality, as author responsible for the final editing, production, and promotion of the book, the power lies firmly on my side.

Conclusion

In this paper, I have explored some of the issues raised when crafting Blended Voices. I have argued that throughout the editing process intervention and manipulation of the text is necessary to transform the stories from a private one-to-one form (the interview) to a public, one-to-many form (published text). "Editing" in the sense of constructing the story occurs with every oral history project. The degree to which a narrative is edited is dependent on the purpose of the project and the intended audience. In the production of Blended Voices, extensive alteration of the verbatim transcript was required to ensure that the text was readable by a general audience, that it is a story which the participants feel accurately represents their experience and values, and that the published text does not harm the participants in any way. Editing is a process that can both clarify and alter the meaning conveyed in the interview.

Creating the story is not an event frozen at the moment the tape-recorder is switched off, but is an ongoing process in which the meaning is constructed jointly by the editor/interviewer and the narrator.³⁵ Editing is an extension of the construction of meaning which began with the interview (or even before the interview with the selection of participants). To return to the ongoing debate in oral history: Whose voice is it anyway?³⁶ The answer which this discussion of Blended Voices reveals is that the story belongs to the narrator but the construction of the story is a joint responsibility. This joint responsibility must acknowledge that the relationship between author and narrator is a complex one involving power dynamics and ethical responsibilities, enhanced by the "minority" status of the participants in this project. While the integrity and authenticity of the narrator's story must not be compromised in the final publication, as oral historians we must be honest about the vital importance of the editorial role in influencing the presentation (and at times construction) of meaning in oral history projects.

We must also acknowledge that although we have a clear responsibility to the narrator and to preserving the meaning of their story, our sphere of responsibility also extends to clear communication with the intended audience, and pragmatically, to producing a product that conforms with the purposes of the sponsoring/funding institution (and to their budget!).³⁷ The discussion presented in this paper demonstrates that the process of editing is an art not a science.³⁸ Techniques for fashioning written and published text from spoken words differ greatly and ultimately depend not only on ethics, but also on the purpose of the project for both the project organizers (writers and funding bodies) and the participants. The aim of Blended Voices was to produce a published and publicly accessible book for a general audience, which would focus on the experiences, perceptions, and feelings of individual migrants and to acknowledge both the challenges and the triumphs of migration for the individuals and the Australian community in general. Its intention was to give voice to a group that would not otherwise get its stories in print. Participation by the narrators was largely motivated by a desire to "tell their story" and have it "put on the record." These tandem aims meant that the primary focus of editing was to convey the meaning of the stories in a readable manner rather than stay faithful to the wording of the interview. If the purpose of the project had been different, for example, an academic project, or a project aimed at a particular cultural group, the product and therefore the editing dilemmas would have been different.

Could I have avoided some of the dilemmas we have raised in this article if the purpose of the project had been different and the primary Blended Voices product had been a more "voice oriented" media such as CD-ROM? Possibly. Sound productions allow wording, intonation, cadence, and all the other nuances of speech to be reproduced. However, while sound recordings avoid many of the pitfalls of translating spoken word to text,³⁹ issues of selection, removal of information, editorial responsibility, and review by the narrator would be as present in editing spoken word as they were in editing written text.

Finally, I will return to the political context of this oral history project. Given the political shift away from multiculturalism in Australia in the two and a half years since Blended Voices was published, with heightened tension in Australia about refugees and asylum seekers and a burgeoning distrust of "foreigners" following the events of 11 September 2001, I would speculate that if Blended Voices was being produced in 2003, the aims of the project may have been more overtly political for both myself and participants. I believe that some of the participants who were refugees may have chosen not to become involved in favor of keeping out of the spotlight. Rather than publicly displaying their pride in their journey through danger, Vietnamese "boat people" Peter and Julia may have declined to become involved. Some of those who did participate may have been more conscious of the political potential of their stories and the number of overtly political statements, such as those given by Leng and Banak may have increased, either emphasizing discrimination they experience or their willingness to "fit in" and be good citizens. In editing the stories, I too would probably be even more aware of the political effect of the narrators' statements.

Oral historians are now more reflective and self-conscious about the practice and politics of oral history and it is important that the process of creating a published manuscript from transcript be examined. This article explores some of the dilemmas raised when editing one oral history project. The editing process cannot be dismissed simply as a tool and a skill in oral history practice. As oral historians, we must be self-conscious about our own role in the production of meaning and acknowledge that the choices we make are governed by our place on the continuum of shared authority. Editing oral history is also about the production of meaning and about the responsibilities and social relationships inherent to qualitative research.

Rebecca Jones has a Masters in public history and worked as a freelance oral historian for seven years. She pursued oral history projects in the areas of sustainable agriculture, women's history, psychiatric disability, and recreation history which have contributed to both traveling exhibitions and published books. She now works as a Research Fellow at the School of Rural Health, Monash University in Victoria, Australia. Although substantially revised, this paper began as a talk at the Gippsland Writers Festival in Victoria, Australia in October 2002. The author would like to acknowledge Ro Gaetjens, Cultural Officer at the City of Kingston, who oversaw the Blended Voices project, and other staff of City of Kingston who assisted in the production of the book. The author would also like to thank the members of the School of Rural Health writing workshop who provided constructive advice and support in the writing of this article.

Notes

¹ City of Kingston, Blended Voices: Kingston Residents Tell Their Stories of Migration (Melbourne: City of Kingston, 2001). A secondary product of Blended Voices was a CD-ROM version of the text, which was distributed with the book.

² Line-by-line demonstrations of the editing process are provided by Michael Frisch, "Preparing Interview Transcripts for Documentary Publication: A Line-by-Line Illustration of the Editing Process" in A Shared Authority: Essays on the Craft and Meaning of Oral and Public History (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1990): 81 and Willa Baum, Transcribing and Editing Oral History (Nashville: American Association for State and Local History, 1977), 38–65.

³ This statement paraphrases a question raised by Peter Read, "Presenting Voices in Different Media: Print, Radio and CD-ROM" in The Oral History Reader, eds. Robert Perks and Alistair Thomson (London: Routledge, 1998), 414– 20.

⁴ Frisch, 81.

⁵ A recent detailed examination of the process of transcription can be found in Carl Wilmsen, "For the Record: Editing and the Production of Meaning in Oral History" The Oral History Review 28 (Winter/Spring 2001): 65.

⁶ One of the earliest discussions of the importance of the editing process in oral history was in Baum, op. cit. Other more recent examples include Donald A. Ritchie, "Publishing Oral History" in Doing Oral History (New York: Twayne Publishers, 1995), 102–3; Jane Mace, "Reminiscence as Literacy: Intersections and Creative Moments," in The Oral History Reader, eds. Robert Perks and Alistair Thomson (London: Routledge, 1998), 393–401; Marjorie Shostak, " 'What the Wind Won't Take Away': The Genesis of Nisa—The Life and Words of a !Kung Woman," in The Oral History Reader, eds. Robert Perks and Alistair Thomson (London: Routledge, 1998), 402–13.

⁷ Francis Good, "Voice, Ear and Text: Words and Meaning" Oral History Association of Australia Journal 22 (2000): 102.

⁸ Loreen Brehaut, "A Terrible Responsibility: Editing the Spoken Word for Print" Oral History Association of Australia Journal 21 (1999): 28.

⁹ Baum, 39.

¹⁰ Fiona Moore, "But Who Sailed the Ship?: An Interview with Wendy Lowenstein" Meanjin 46 (1987): 357–8.

¹¹ City of Kingston, 47–48.

¹² City of Kingston, iii.

¹³ City of Kingston, 95.

¹⁴ City of Kingston, 87.

¹⁵ Alessandro Portelli, "What Makes Oral History Different?" in The Oral History Reader, eds. Robert Perks and Alistair Thomson (London: Routledge, 1998), 64–66.

¹⁶ Kate Moore, "Perversion of the Word: The Role of the Transcript in Oral History" Words and Silences 1 (1997): 14.

¹⁷ Frisch, 84.

¹⁸ City of Kingston, 77.

¹⁹ Brehaut, 28.

²⁰ Susan Emily Allen, "Resisting the Editorial Ego: Editing Oral History" Oral History Review 10 (1982): 33–45.

²¹ Frisch, 86.

²² Paul Thompson, The Voice of the Past, 3rd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 263.

²³ I am borrowing the phrase "shared authority" from Michael Frisch A Shared Authority: Essays on the Craft and Meaning of Oral and Public History (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1990).

²⁴ As I am citing information "Annie" and "Kao" asked me to delete from the published version, I have chosen pseudonyms and altered some identifying information to preserve the anonymity of the information they gave me. For this reason, I am not quoting directly from the verbatim transcripts.

²⁵ City of Kingston, 89.

²⁶ City of Kingston, 75.

²⁷ Wilmsen, paragraph 29–30.

²⁸ Wilmsen, paragraph 31.

²⁹ Alistair Thomson, "Fifty Years On: An International Perspective on Oral History" Oral History Association of Australia Journal 21 (1999): 87.

³⁰ This issue is raised by both Shostak, 408 and Amelia Fry, "Reflections on Ethics" in Oral History: An Interdisciplinary Anthology, 2nd ed., eds. David K. Dunaway and Willa K. Baum (Walnut Creek: AltaMira Press, 1996), 164.

³¹ "Katy" is a pseudonym. As I am discussing material I decided to exclude from the published text, a pseudonym is necessary to protect the participant's privacy.

³² Fry, 164.

³³ Kathleen Blee, "Evidence, Empathy and Ethics: Lessons from Oral Histories of the Klan" in The Oral History Reader, eds. Robert Perks and Alistair Thomson (London: Routledge, 1998), 333–43.

³⁴ Shostak, 402–18.

³⁵ Frisch, xx–xxi; Wilmsen, paragraph 20.

³⁶ Many writers have asked this question including Shulamit Reinharz, "Feminist Oral History" in Feminist Methods in Social Research (New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), 138.

³⁷ The issue of commercial viability is not relevant here because although the final publication was sold, the City of Kingston did not have recouping production costs as a goal for sales.

³⁸ This observation was also made by Good, 104.

³⁹ Read, 414– 20.

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