"First, Do No Harm": Tread Carefully Where Oral History, Trauma, and Current Crises Intersect. Issue 2 (2nd July 2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Cramer, Jennifer A.
• Is Part Of: Oral history review. Volume 47:Issue 2(2020)
• Page Start: 203
• Page End: 213
• Publication Date: 2020-07-02
• Subjects: Trauma -- crisis -- therapy -- oral history -- COVID-19; Oral history -- Periodicals; Civilization -- Periodicals; 907.2
• DOI: 10.1080/00940798.2020.1793679
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0094-0798

Abstract

ABSTRACT: The nature of oral history fieldwork changes when it is conducted during the course of an ongoing, long-term crisis like COVID-19. One must ask what the role of the oral history practitioner is, if any, in crisis events. In what follows, I discuss this and strategies for undertaking COVID-19 projects based on my experience as director for the T. Harry Williams Center for Oral History at Louisiana State University Libraries and on models for crisis-centered oral histories. I also discuss what project managers must take into consideration with regard to the sustainability of crisis oral history projects during our current period of increasing change and political unrest.