Oral History Workshop in Singapore
We recently delivered our Oral History Workshop for the employees of a well-known Singaporean business. We enjoyed meeting and chatting with the volunteers and hearing their thoughts about how oral history can reveal the hidden histories of a business.
Megan Lee and Amelia Allsop deliver History Ink’s Oral History Workshop in Singapore
During the workshop we covered a wide range of subjects and topics including:
Using oral history in community and corporate contexts
Ethics and the law
Selecting interviews
Research preparation
Question toolkits
Technical advice on how to use the Tascam DR-05
Post-interview etiquette and admin
At the end of the training session, we asked the volunteers to pair up and interview each other in turn. This was followed by a facilitated discussion in which the group shared their thoughts on the challenges of interviewing colleagues about their life story - and how they felt about being interviewed themselves! Interestingly, some of the participants found it easier to be the interviewer rather than the interviewee.
We believe that corporate oral history programmes are a great way to capture the memories and insights of long-standing staff. After all, their stories are the company’s history. At the moment, we’re seeing more and more businesses use oral history not only as a method to preserve their past, but as a tool to engage employees and connect with the wider community. Unlike the traditional focus on top-down narratives, oral history captures diverse memories and experiences that might otherwise be lost.
We love working together with people who share our enthusiasm for storytelling and history – and we look forward to meeting more wonderful volunteers in the next few weeks as we roll out more of our volunteer programmes in February and March.
The workshop explored the value of oral history to businesses and the wider community - using examples such as the Stories from Our Communities project by the National Archives of Singapore
