How oral history can engage audiences and reveal hidden histories

History Ink Director Amelia Allsop has published an article in the most recent edition of the peer-reviewed journal ‘Collections: A Journal for Museum and Archive Professionals’. It seeks to answer the question: What role can oral history play in business archives and in public history contexts in Hong Kong today?

The article addresses the work of The Hong Kong Heritage Project (HKHP), a major business archive and soon-to-be museum in Hong Kong. It situates the work of HKHP within the wider Hong Kong cultural context and investigates the methodologies used by the project to record 500+ oral history interviews, the largest collection of oral histories held by a private cultural institution in Hong Kong.

The article also examines the challenges and opportunities intrinsic to the practice of oral history in a for-profit environment, and explores the uses of oral history in exhibition contexts as a tool to foster audience engagement and to encourage understanding and empathy for history as well as for other people.

The article, published by Sage Journals, can be accessed here.