Oral History in Times of Change: Gender, Documentation, and the Making of Archives, Hoda Elsadda and Hanan Sabea
Oral history archives have always been at the forefront of liberatory social movements in general, and the feminist movement in particular. Until the end of the twentieth century in the Arab world, archives of women’s oral narratives were almost non-existent with the exception of small documentation efforts tied to individual research. However, after 2011, there has been a marked increase in the documentation of projects.
In this context, the Women and Memory Forum organized a conference in 2015 about the challenges of creating gender-sensitive oral history archives in times of change. The papers in this collection shed light on documentation initiatives in Arab countries in transitional and conflict situations, in addition to international experiences. They engage with questions around archives and power, the challenges and opportunities presented by new technologies to the making and preserving of archives, ethical concerns in the construction of archives, women’s archives and the production of alternative knowledge, as well as conceptual and methodological issues in oral history.
Contributors: Sondra Hale, Faihaa Abdel Hady, Jean Said Makdisi, Rafif Saidawi, Noor Nieftagodien, Nahawand El Kaderi Eissa, Lucine Taminian, Maissan Hassan, Diana Magdy, Stephen Urgola, Manal Hamza.