The fascists keep killing my grandfather:

Oral history archiving and thought collectives in the digital age

Voices and the Archive:Oral History, Research and Researchers

Wednesday, 20th November 2013

Public archives on-line materials

Public archives making more and more material availableo See Oral History Collections Online

http://wiki.ohda.matrix.msu.edu/index.php/Sites• Lists 379+ archives with recordings available on-line

• Last updated 13 November 2013o E.g. British Library http://sounds.bl.uk/Oral-history

• Thousands of interviews on-line See Rob Perks (2009) on the unstoppable rise of oral

histories published on-line and Mary Stewart (2010) on the ‘biography’ of the oral history archive

But there is more… Web.2.0o Online oral history + Blogs + Discussion boards + Mash-ups

What lives beyond the archive?

A brief overview of digital OH case study

Public archiveso E.g Imperial War

Museum http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/80019729 c. 14 mins 54 secs

Commercialo Video games industry

Antiquarian/Individualo Subject group driven

• Hobbyists• Ideologues

Other sources

Public institutions

Commercial

AntiquarianHobbyists

etc.

Memory and Digital Oral History

Oral historians generally positive about oral history and Web 1.0; Web 2.0 etc.o Access – curating for a user centered approach (Frisch, 2013)o Extending shared authority into interpretation (High, 2009)o Breaking down boundaries and innovation (Boyd, 2013)

Continuing questions about ‘raw’ and ‘cooked’ (see Frisch and Lambert, 2010)

Linking to other debates e.g. reuse (Bornat, various) Some concerns

o Ethics (Perks, 2009) Larson, 2013)o Progressive narratives of reaking boundaries are suspect

(Edgerton, 2008) However…

o Our memories (and histories) are ‘mediated’ by the digital world (van Dijck, 2007)

The case study 00.36 hours on 30 May, 1941, 25 miles west by south

of St. Vincent, Cape Verde Islands, British merchant ship Silveryew, 6,373 tons, was torpedoed by a German U-Boat (U-106).

Silveryew sank with ‘one European and two Chinese’ reported as missing.o British Naval Intelligence, Weekly Intelligence Report (WIR),

6 June 194, no. 65, p. 17 NAA.007.0125

Mediating my family history

Biographical

• Interview with my father (sup. unpublished biography of his father)

• Interviews with Jürgen Oesten

• Videos by video gamers

• Other interviews

Public Histories

• BooksAntiquaria

• Commemorators• Sharkhunters US• Millitary/

religious UK

Internet U-Boat thought collectives

Commercial

Political

Hobbyists

Commemorators

Fascists

Gamers

DigitalAntiquarian

s

Historians

Half cooked interviews ‘Full’ IWM interview with merchant seamen Extracts of my father’s interview posted

on SoundCloud Extracts of Jürgen Oesten’s interviews

o Ubisoft on YouTube plus…o Sharkhunters DVD 60 with extracts on YouTube

Unwitting (oral) biographies of gamers Interviews from publications

My father’s account With bitterness, he writes:

o It is worthwhile recording here the poor treatment merchant seamen received when their ships were sunk in wartime. Still classed as civilians all pay was stopped from the date of the sinking and no leave was granted. Even to return to their home meant meeting the cost themselves or depending on help from the Seamen's Missions.

o As my father had paid into a superannuation fund my mother received a pension of £3.10s in 1941 and no other Government help to bring up a family. On her death in 1957 she was still receiving £3.10s.

Speaks about:o Loss of childhoodo Downward mobility

And inaccuracyo He always insisted that MV Silveryew was in convoy

Oesten’s accounts Ubisoft (and

Sharkhunters) videoso Content driven (how

to…)• Use thermal currents• Attack at night

o Self justifying and depoliticised• A professional job• War is hell• ‘Nothing personal’• Friends with the enemy

SH III Gamers’ accounts - fictive and non-fictive

biographies Fictive, e.g. Dize

‘Engineer’ from Hamburg who in his virtual world reported on a discussion board that he had on ‘05 Aug 1941 sunk the Silveryew (Medium Cargo), 5636 tons’. o http

://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=91447

Non-fictive: Effing Controller

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1nSSN6dAW8&feature=youtube_gdata

Politics and Commemorators

Fascists (Sharkhunters) ... Sharkhunters president

Harry Cooper, 69.. claimed to be an expert on German U-boat submarines and said of their crews: “I thought these guys were decent and honourable kids. They don’t deserve history to look down on them.” (Harvey, O. Frail war vets..., The Sun, 2006).

Poppyists (Tower Hill)

Other accounts The Reading 70th

Anniversary Service Tower Hill, May 2013o Roger Hoefling gives

a reading beginning with the account of the sinking of MV Silveryew is from 'The Real Cruel Sea' by Richard Woodman

o http://www.benjidog.co.uk/Tower%20Hill/Ceremonies.html

Digital antiquarianso http://uboat.net/allie

s/merchants/ships/954.html

o http://www.wrecksite.eu/wreck.aspx?58337

o Blogs and discussion boards in Spanish, French, English…

A note on the digital history

Lack of publishing chain The path of plagiarism amongst antiquarians

o Repetition of false information from Wreck site to Wikipedia

Permanency, e.g. YouTube video of Oesten describing U-106 attack on HMS Malaya removed November 2013

Missing history e.g. political impact of U-Boats

New ways of workingo collaborative working e.g. Mozilla popcorno cross referencing

Other points On-line v not on-line General searching v. searching within sites Challenges of finding and using materials

o Audio v. Video• Video privileged (easier to find) e.g. Google video

• YouTube, Vimeo, blinkx

• Audio search engines• Specialist (e.g. Sound effects; Podcasts; Music)• Yahoo Audio Search defunct?

Open access v. copyright Communities of interest (thought collectives)

generating visibility and duplicating material and interpretation https://popcorn.webmaker.org/

Areas requiring more thought

Epistemologicalo How does oral history on-line shape perceptions of

the past?o Political: More history or No history?

Ethicalo What is fair and unfair reuse?o How do we address inaccuracy and

misrepresentation? Curatorial

o No-one can gate keep the web (not even David Cameron)

o How to engage users in indexing?o Is crowd sourcing the answer? And ‘open access’ to

what?

Conclusions

Digital oral history = Oral history without aim (yet again) and without end?

Understanding web thought collectives The role of the archivist

o Making connections or living in splendid isolation?• Meta tag cross indexing?

o Facilitating accuracy?o Providing historical context?

The role of micro studies as well as macro surveys