Narrating our Pasts The Social Construction of Oral History [Paperback]

Using an interdisciplinary approach, Elizabeth Tonkin investigates the construction and interpretation of oral histories.This study of the construction and interpretation of oral histories is illustrated through a wide range of examples of memory, narration, and oral tradition. It includes many from Europe and the Americas, with a particular focus on oral histories from the Jlao Kru of Liberia.This study of the construction and interpretation of oral histories is illustrated through a wide range of examples of memory, narration, and oral tradition. It includes many from Europe and the Americas, with a particular focus on oral histories from the Jlao Kru of Liberia.Elizabeth Tonkin looks at how oral histories are constructed and how they should be interpreted. Her study 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 the author has carried out extensive research. She also draws on and integrates the insights of a range of disciplines, such as literary criticism, linguistics, history, psychology, and communication and cultural studies.Acknowledgements; Note on orthography; Introduction; 1. Jlao: an introductory case study; 2. The teller of the tale: authors and their authorisations; 3. Structuring an account: the work of genre; 4. Temporality: narrators and their times; 5. Subjective or objective; 6. Memory makes us, we make memory; 7. Truthfulness, history and identity; Notes; Bibliography. Tonkin provides a lucid discussion of how oral history is constructed....the strengths of the book are many....numerous illustrative examples from predominantly oral cultures in Africa as well as from industrialized Europe and America....perhaps the most significant feature of the book is its unified approach. Anthropological Linguistics ...this is a very thoughtful and delightful work, carefully argued,l¼