A mural of the tale of “chicken feathers for sugar” on a building in Yiwu. For generations, making brown sugar by hand and trading it for chicken feathers afforded locals a modest living. Oral history is the means by which the fond memories of older generations are recorded. Photo: PROVIDED TO CSST

Since the reconstruction of Chinese sociology in 1979, studies of oral history and collective memory have made significant strides in research methods and social practices. To further explore the role of oral history in sociological research, researchers conducted interviews with 26 oral history interviewers and their assistants involved in the “Oral History of New China’s Industrial Construction” or “Oral History of New China Figures” projects, focusing on their experiences and personal reflections. Interviews are crucial for understanding the dynamics between interviewers and interviewees, as well as for recreating the interview settings and interpreting the oral history process. While we can “complete” or “conduct” an oral history interview, achieving excellence requires diligent efforts through “listening-asking,” “recalling-telling,” and “narrating-selecting.” This qualitative approach aims to revisit historical scenes, reproduce and reconstruct them, and ultimately integrate oral history into our analytical frameworks and dialogues.

Listening-asking: Revisiting historical scenes

An oral history interview consists of two main aspects: storytelling and listening. The importance of storytelling in constructing historical scenes is self-evident, but listening is often even more essential for researchers. First, listening is a prerequisite for smooth interviews. Second, and perhaps more importantly, listening fundamentally invites interviewers and witnesses to revisit historical scenes together. We must bear in mind that listening isn’t merely passive reception of information; it’s an intellectual process that involves intensive mental work, and the quality of questions asked by a listener tests this intellectual process. In this study, many interviewees emphasized the importance of “thinking on your feet.”

Listening involves at least three components: First, interviewers need to pay attention to the coherence and potential contradictions of the interviewee’s narrative logic. Second, listening requires a considerable degree of scholarly sensitivity to prompt subsequent questions. Last, interviewers must be attuned to changes in the interviewee’s tone, especially shifts, pauses, or repetition during the narration.

Effective oral history interviews extend beyond mere listening. In addition to eye contact, facial expressions, and responsive gestures or body movements from the interviewer, asking tactful and meaningful questions is crucial. When engaged in interviews with a research purpose, asking questions not only controls the pace of the interview but also determines the specific path for interviewers and witnesses to revisit historical scenes together. In this study, several interviewees highlighted the importance of asking questions. Under the guiding principle “ask less, listen more,” the timing and quality of questions are paramount. 

Questions should directly address research themes, analogous to the concept of “validity” in quantitative research, so that pertinent questions ensure the effectiveness of the study. As oral history involves not just the personal life histories of witnesses but also their intricate connections to macro-social contexts or major historical events, interviewers must acquire a high level of historical knowledge, which enhances their understanding of witnesses’ life histories. This background bridges the gap between interviewers and witnesses and facilitates a deeper understanding of the social structures underlying witnesses’ life journeys. Beyond macro-social contexts, the discourse system which represents witnesses’ life journeys is also crucial. Discourse systems are comprised of context, vocabulary (terminology), and topics.

Recalling-telling: Reproducing historical scenes

The quality of an interviewee’s statements is central to the success of an oral history interview. We can categorize the interviewee’s statements into two specific processes: the first is implicit and imperceptible but represents a deep and continuous intellectual activity—this is recalling; the second is the interviewee’s telling, which can be intuitively perceived or heard, and it is a significant manifestation of the interviewee’s agency.

Recalling, or related memories, and telling are intertwined concepts. Memory is the source of telling, and telling is the process through which memory is presented. In oral history interviews, processes related to memory or recalling primarily involve two aspects: the opening of memory and the production of memory content. Once the gates of memory are opened, if the interviewer conducts themselves appropriately and gains the trust of the interviewee, the interview will steadily progress. The interviewee gradually recounts their life story, and this is the process of producing memory content. Memory is based on factual events from the past. The accuracy of these facts is no longer the focus of contemporary memory studies, though the recalling still serves as a basic framework that constrains memory and its reproduction.

In contrast to historical reproduction, the process of recalling is always a subjective, intentional cognitive activity based on individual understanding, involving extraction and shaping the past. We need to emphasize the following three points when we try to understand memory, recalling, and telling processes.

First, memories related to oral history are recollections of an individual’s life journey, representing a comprehensive review of oneself by the witness, rather than random glimpses of life segments. Second, recalling and telling during interviews are neither personal memoirs nor daydreams recounted while gazing out a window; they exemplify “communicative memory,” existing within the interactive practices when individuals or groups recall the past to interviewers. Finally, whether memories in the interviewee’s mind are calm or turbulent, they inevitably forget trivialities- often more details are forgotten than remembered.

Narrating-selecting: Constructing historical scenes

Since French sociologist Halbwachs’s work began to circulate, the issue of memory construction has been intensely discussed. If, during memory or narration, there exists a “collective framework” that helps people “reconstruct intentions about the past,” then “individuals rooted in specific group contexts use these contexts to remember or reenact the past.” Therefore, collective frameworks including collective experiences, socio-cultural environments, and mainstream ideologies construct history twice. First, primary construction occurs during recalling (telling) of memory, and then a secondary construction takes place in narratives involving social structures and their life events.

Narration is a structural external expression, with a clear and professional audience. Interviewees presenting themselves in historical narratives will be more precise, so external or structural constraints and subconscious influences may be heightened. Researchers must acknowledge that any narration they collect will also be subject to the selection of interviewees. Although oral history studies often strive to select interviewees of different ages, backgrounds, and genders, selection methods often encounter a common issue: those with special narrative abilities become the “elite,” and less articulate eyewitnesses often unintentionally cede their storytelling rights to them. Thus, the ultimate result is that those best able to tell stories within each group become the group’s spokespeople. This unintentional “selection” of interviewees, even self-selected by an interviewed group, makes “narrative ability” a potential or unintentional filtering mechanism.

Whether one has the “narrative ability” is one thing, but we also have to consider if witnesses are willing to tell their stories. Willingness to narrate directly affects the construction of historical scenes, especially when memories and related narratives involve traumatic events. Traumatic memories are divided into two types: those originating from individual experiences and those shaped by collective trauma. We can’t stress more—Oral history is never a simple record of memories but a reorganization and reconstruction of history through the narratives of eyewitnesses. As a result, whether and to what extent interviewees reveal their most hidden and intimate memories determines the clarity and richness of an interview.

The invisible macro social structural background and the visible micro-interview environment have dual impacts on narratives. Eyewitnesses live within specific socio-cultural or macro environments, constrained by various political systems, ideologies, collective ideas, daily customs, and even family and social relationships. When recalling, especially when narrating, they sometimes selectively recount and reconstruct past history. This recounting and reconstruction differs from “lying” because eyewitnesses are influenced both by collective frameworks underlying narratives and by tangible daily relationship networks. More often than not, eyewitnesses may not even be aware of the constraints imposed by both.

Empathy and withdrawing: Individual connection to history

For years, the relationship between researchers and their subjects has been a contentious issue in sociological research. Chinese sociologist Fei Xiaotong once said that anthropologists studying unfamiliar cultures must be able to “immerse themselves” while studying their own culture, while at the same time being able to “maintain distance.” Chinese scholar Zhou Xiaohong addressed this with the concepts of “othering” and “defamilialization.” Although “othering” and “defamilialization” can adequately explain Fei Xiaotong’s two paths of “immersion” and “maintaining distance,” considering the distinct psychological interplay between interviewers and interviewees in oral history research, the psychological concept of empathy can also be used to describe the process of “othering.” Correspondingly, withdrawing can be applied to describe the process of “defamilialization.”

Oral history research is about the study of people, and oral history interviews, as part of the data collection process, are a bidirectional process of communication and understanding between individuals’ minds. From “listening-asking,” to “recalling-telling,” to “narrating-selecting,” each process requires genuine emotional investment to build respect, understanding, and empathy, leading to immersive recollections and sincere exchanges. Therefore, empathy is a prerequisite for oral history interviews.

In addition to being able to emotionally detach from an interview to maintain rational judgment, “withdrawing” has a deeper meaning. Interviewers should also help interviewees “withdraw” from their personal experiences. This involves bringing understanding and insights from lived experiences back into the historical scenes a person has witnessed, thereby reconstructing the collective life history of a group or generation.

Hu Jie is an associate professor at the Department of Sociology under the School of Humanities at Southeast University.

Edited by YANG XUE