Should the oral historian share transcripts with those they have interviewed? As part of my dissertation research on migration from Britain to Southern Africa after the Second World War, I have been conducting oral history interviews. As someone who started out working on the nineteenth century, using oral history as a source has been extremely rewarding but also fraught with unfamiliar ethical questions. In some ways things were easier when all the subjects of my research were well, dead. After all, analyzing a diary from the 1890s feels quite different to analyzing the life story of a living human being who, at the very least, has been generous enough to give you their time and who may well read your book or article. A number of questions arise. Is using someone’s life story as esearch material exploitative? Are you empowering or promoting their viewpoint by using their story? Should you use your narrator’s name? What control should they have over how you make use of their material? The question of exploitation versus empowerment is complex, depends very much on the specific situation, and I hope to take it up in a later post. * Update. See my latest post on the ethics of oral history here. 
By contrast, in my oral history methodology class, there seemed a clear consensus about how to handle the latter two dilemmas. You have the ethical (and possibly legal) responsibility to respect the wishes of the narrator. You should use their name if they wish or a pseudonym if that is their preference. In regards to how the material is used, again it is at the narrator’s discretion. Consequently, I have always made it clear to the people I have interviewed that it is up to them what they are comfortable disclosing and have always been sure to have them sign a release form AFTER the interview so they know what they are releasing. Another part of this is providing the narrators with a copy of the transcript of the interview. Sharing a transcript with a narrator, theoretically gives them the chance to correct any misinterpretations or mistakes in the transcription process. It also gives the narrator a change to clarify portions of the interview where they may have been unclear or misspoken. Advocates of this method assert that reading the transcript or listening to the interview may also jog the narrator’s memory further and help them to provide new insights or understandings in subsequent interviews. Providing them with the transcript also gives narrators a further chance to withdraw certain parts of their interview that they have, on reflection, decided against sharing.
However, leaving aside the fact that this would not be possible with illiterate narrators, I have found that many narrators become uncomfortable when confronted with the transcript of their interview. A transcribed informal conversation is much less articulate than a written account. People think as they speak, particularly when recalling something from the distant past, interspersing sentences with phrases like “I think” or “that’s right” or even changing course mid sentence to note a newly remembered detail. Even after I had edited a transcript to make it read more smoothly, one narrator told me that he didn’t speak like that and seemed concerned that I might directly quote from the interview in my work. He certainly seemed less forthcoming and less comfortable with me in our subsequent interview. All of this has led me to re-evaluate my approach up till now. Is it better, as one colleague suggested, to give the narrators a transcript only after you have completed all interviews? This becomes difficult if you wish to develop a relationship and continue interviews over a long period, perhaps for years, but might work for a more limited amount of interviews. Is it wise to give narrators the transcripts at all? Should they only be given upon request?
January 12, 2010 at 11:00 pm |
Can you think of other ways of sharing the material with your narrators/informants? Do they really want a transcript–or are there other ways of celebrating their memories and acknowledging their contribution to your project? Duplicating photographs? Connections to others with shared pasts with whom they’ve lost touch? While the transcript is most valuable to you, it might not be the most valuable thing for your narrators.
January 13, 2010 at 2:58 am |
I agree that other ways of sharing the material are useful. I particularly like the idea of facilitating connections between those with shared pasts. However, this still doesn’t completely solve for me the issue of whether there is an ethical responsibility on the part of the historian to share the transcript and give the narrator the option to correct or even change part of their interview if they choose, since the transcript will become the basis of historical analysis for most practitioners of oral history. Perhaps asking the narrator if they wish to see a transcript might be the best way to give interview partners the option without forcing it upon them?
January 14, 2010 at 6:30 am |
Asking interview subjects what they’d like to see is a good start. It can also be really helpful to ask your informants for clarification of specific passages. I still think the transcript, as such, is much more meaningful for the researcher than the informant. But I wouldn’t withhold it from anyone who asked for it.
January 17, 2010 at 1:33 am |
Jean, I felt compelled to offer interview subjects something from the interview. I was reluctant to give them a written transcript, partly because of the work involved, and partly because I didn’t want them to nitpick over the details. But I did want them to have access to their own testimony. So, I offered everyone the choice of a written transcript (none chose this), but sent them a CD with an audio file of their testimony. This assuaged my concern about including them in their own story, but also gave them the opportunity to correct or strike any material if they so wished.
Realistically, though, I agree with Laura that other things are probably more valuable to interview subjects. Because of my research subject, I don’t feel I can put subjects into contact with one another. But had I used their own photographs and materials, I would readily have offered to scan them or duplicate them if they wished.
January 26, 2010 at 10:03 pm |
Justin, I like your approach and think it may be the solution to my dilemma. And certainly, it was not my intention to project what I value the most onto my informant, but rather concern that I was truly getting informed consent and had correctly understood my narrators that motivated my discussion of transcripts. I explore this issue further in my latest post on the ethics of oral history. Thanks for the thought-provoking responses.
January 26, 2010 at 8:03 am |
[...] priority be, gathering information for their own research or the well-being of their informants? My previous post raised the question of what ethical responsibility oral historians have to share transcripts of [...]