Oral History as a Source for the History of Experience

Abstract

This chapter by Antti Malinen examines oral history as a source through which experiences are not merely retrieved but actively produced, negotiated, and mediated. Focusing on interview-based materials, the chapter highlights the interactive, dialogical, and ethically charged processes through which memory-based sources come into being. Drawing on two Finnish research projects involving adult care-leavers, one based on individual interviews and the other on facilitated group forums, the analysis demonstrates how power relations, emotional dynamics, cultural scripts, and institutional frameworks shape what can be said, shared, or silenced. Particular attention is paid to the embodied and relational dimensions of interviewing, as well as to the transformations oral history sources undergo through documentation, anonymisation, and archiving. Rather than treating oral history as a transparent window onto past events, the chapter approaches it as a methodological site where experience is narrated, reshaped, and given meaning in the present. In doing so, it offers reflexive tools for historians working with memory-based materials across diverse research contexts.