Narrating our Pasts. The Social Construction of Oral History

This study looks at how oral histories are constructed and how they should
be interpreted, and argues for a deeper understanding of their oral and
social characteristics. Oral accounts of past events are also guides to the
future, as well as being social activities in which tellers claim authority
to speak to particular audiences. Like written history and literature,
orality has its shaping genres and aesthetic conventions and, likewise, has
to be interpreted through them. The argument is illustrated through a wide
range of examples of memory, narration and oral tradition, including many
from Europe and the Americas, and with a particular focus on oral histories
from the Jlao Kru of Liberia, with whom Elizabeth Tonkin has carried out
extensive research. Tonkin also draws on and integrates the insights of a
range of other disciplines, such as literary criticism, linguistics,
history, psychology, and communication and cultural studies.