Our focus will be on the challenges of using oral history to document war, conflict and displacement in situations of both immediate and remembered trauma. We will look at the special methodological considerations of documenting individual and social memory where collective interpretations of experience differ in significant ways from written and public accounts.

We will explore the variety of ways in which oral history, an international movement located within and outside the academy, provides a shared social context in which to record, interpret and disseminate oral narratives of displacement and exile, migration and settlement, war and conflict in an era of globalization. We will also offer practical workshops on interviewing,developing public and community oral history projects, recording and editing oral history in multimedia environments, as well as seminars and lectures on the themes of the Institute.