Chapter Three:
Preserving Queer Sites of Memory
“We made poems and sang their names and realized love continues and cannot be fully captured but can be held and heard and kept.” [1]
— Alexis Pauline Gumbs
What is the best way to preserve an oral history? This question has been debated for decades by oral historians and will continue to change since technology is rapidly developing and providing us with new opportunities for growth in the field.[2] The current best practices mostly center around trying to balance preserving the aurality of an oral history interview and the want to make the interview easily accessible for researchers.[3] Alessandro Portelli was influential in urging oral historians to preserve the audio of interviews, as he said,
“The transcript turns aural objects into visual ones, which inevitably implies changes and interpretation… Expecting the transcript to replace the tape for scientific purposes is equivalent to doing art criticism on reproductions, or literary criticism on translations.”[4]
The amount of meaning that is lost when translating an aural source to a written one is substantial, so the oral history field is now putting more of an emphasis on preserving the audio recordings of interviews.
Preserving the audio of an interview is an important place to start, but preserving the embodied aspects of the interview, including space, would provide future audiences with a larger amount of information. Friedman discusses this at length, and urges the oral history field to start incorporating video and other ways of documenting embodied knowledge more intentionally into our practice. He says,
“Oral history projects should be designed to explicitly interrogate the embodied experiences of narrators… Let our interviews reflect the importance of ‘living speech’ that communicates these embodied ways of be-ing, and let us use that new information to interpret oral history narratives towards full onto-logical care for be-ing.” [5]
This embodied information Friedman acknowledges is information that is normally solely interpreted by the interviewer and left out of the archive. Therefore, much of the narrator’s embodied way of being may never be documented. While I agree with Friedman, his argument is focused on capturing the embodied experience of the narrators and less on how the embodiment of both the narrator and the interviewer play important roles within the interview. I think we should expand our practice to not only include more ways to document the narrator’s embodied knowledge, but also preserving as much information as we can about the interview space and the subjectivity that develops within it. Space is an important part of the narrator’s embodied experience and we should take similar interest in preserving it.
Putting more emphasis on preserving the narrator’s embodied knowledge and non-verbal communication along with the embodied interaction between the narrator and the interviewer will allow for future audiences to see meaning that may have otherwise been lost in translation. While many in the oral history field would agree with this, most practitioners either do not have the interest or the resources to make this aspect a priority. However, with new technological innovations and a shift in how we practice archiving, we may find that there are a wide variety of new possibilities to explore.
The first step with preserving spaces, I believe, starts during the interview. As Friedman suggests we have the option of building oral history projects and interviews that center embodied knowledge.[6] We can give narrators the opportunity to describe how they view their embodied relationship to the space where the interview is taking place. We can ask for descriptions of spaces that are brought up in the conversation and the feelings associated with them. We can use video to document non-verbal communication of both the narrator and the interviewer and can allow the space to enter the conversation instead of pretending like it doesn’t play a role in the shape of the interview.
The second step involves deciding what information to preserve from the interview. Pierre Nora points out that “there must be a will to remember,” when he emphasizes the idea that there is intentionality behind what we choose to remember and preserve of history. While the interview may be a co-creation consisting of what the narrator and interviewer believe is worthy of remembrance, as the oral historian we have control over what information is actually preserved and then how that information is made accessible.
Most oral historians start with preserving the original audio recording or, even better, the video recording of the interview. I believe if these are edited, it should only be at the wishes of the narrator and not to “clean” them up or make them easier to listen to. The chit chat and background noise that may be on the recording provide listeners with more information to make meaning with. This may lead listeners to understand aspects of the conversation that were not apparent to the interviewer. Our focus should be on providing future listeners with as much information about the interview as possible, not on our audio quality.
John and Bill’s interview was the perfect example for how “messy” audio can actually give listeners a better understanding of the narrators and the world they live in. The clip below was used earlier to analyze public queer spaces, but this time listen for the additional layer of meaning the interaction with Paisley brings to this interview.
While John and Bill are talking about their past experiences of being involved in the gay bar scene, their present roles as fathers of a one-year old cannot be kept out of the conversation. Doing this interview in their home meant that often one of them would get up and leave the interview to attend to Paisley, as Bill does in this clip, but it also provides you a unique look into the multifaceted lives of these narrators.
Oral historians often take field notes to remind ourselves of any information that would not be documented through the audio. This normally includes information about the physical space we are in and the non-verbal communication that went on between ourselves and the narrators. The descriptions of each space shared earlier come out of my fieldnotes. Only recently have oral historians started sharing these notes with narrators and archives, but when these notes are done well, it can be extremely effective at helping listeners to understand the subtext of an interview. The example below is from the podcast Making Gay History, in which Eric Marcus shares his detailed fieldnotes of an interaction with Hal Call before they play the interview.
Eric Marcus: Here’s the scene and it was quite a scene because Hal Call’s office was above the Circle J Cinema, which was a sex club and porn theater he owned and ran in San Francisco’s Tenderloin district…. So I was a bit tentative walking in, but a little curious, too. And I know that because my post-interview notes were unusually detailed. Hal meets me in the dark entryway and I follow him into the theater, which looks almost like a small chapel… There’s a film showing and a couple of men in the audience. We go up a narrow staircase to a spacious, bright office. A long wall is filled floor to ceiling with video cassettes. Another wall is lined with rows of empty vodka bottles. We sit on a long sofa facing TV screens showing jerk off films. … As I unpack my tape recorder and microphones I tell myself I’m going to have to avoid looking up because I’ll never be able to keep my train of thought. … There’s a video camera set up on a stand next to where Hal is sitting and it’s focused on me. I clip the microphone to his shirt and he reaches over to his video camera and presses record. I press record, too. [7]
Listening to the interview alone, you would only hear two men discussing the history of the gay liberation movement, but there are many other factors at play. Marcus’s embodied experience is complicated not only by the images he is seeing around the room, but by the fact that there is a video camera aimed at him. This will obviously affect the interview and Marcus’s ability to listen to Hal’s stories. Eric shares this kind of information in most of his podcast episodes. I believe that through describing his personal embodied experience, the listener is able to better understand the world in which Eric’s conversations are taking place and how the conversations themselves are being shaped by it.
Portrait of Hal Call, 1953. Credit: Harold L. Call papers, ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives at the USC Libraries
Listen to full interview here
The final step is about how we curate these spaces and the embodied experiences we have documented to the public. I believe that the best way to present embodied knowledge is to create an embodied experience for the audience themselves. Public history scholars and artists use these kinds of experiences to engage their audiences and help communicate information. The different techniques and technologies employed to create these experiences ranges from low-tech performances, to interactive walking tours, to entire worlds constructed using virtual reality.[8]
With a background in theater, originally I was interested in using these oral histories to create an in-person immersive experience where the audience would have their own interaction with a queer space. However, because of the current times, our ability to be together in space is changing and so we must also find ways to adapt. I realized that there is a rapidly growing number of technological tools that can help to create digital immersive experiences. While the embodied experience of being in space together is lost, digital tools have the added benefit of providing the opportunity to create work that is more accessible and easily preserved than an in-person experience would be. The final section of this chapter will be discussing the ways in which I believe oral history could and should be utilizing these digital tools for the curation and preservation of oral histories.
In 2008, a group of historians, archivists, museum curators, professors and researchers started a conversation about digital history. They wanted to discuss how they envisioned digital history impacting the ways in which we document and learn about history. Patrick Gallagher, an expert in exhibit design, discussed the weight immersive experiences have on audiences. He said,
“Immersion is based on placing an individual in a very particular time and place. We understand from market research that visitors to museums comprehend a concept in more depth when the spaces they are in emulate the reality of the situation….This is very important to a younger audience, which asks: How do I know it is real?” [9]
They talk about how the developing field of digital history offers unique ways to build these immersive experiences that will inspire audiences to be more inquisitive of and invested in the information being presented.
The field of performance studies has also developed an interest in the relationship between the body and technology, especially as it relates to immersive experiences. In the book Digital Bodies, Steven Benford discusses our embodied relationship with technology, saying that, “our interaction with computers is not only a matter of abstract cognition, but also reaches out into the physical and material.”[10] Susan Broadhurst and Sarah Price go on to describe the digital body as “extended, enhanced, reconfigured and yet identifiable as a body of infinite variability and creativity, that is still linked with our everyday mode of ‘being’ tied to our locatable and temporal existence.”[11] Therefore, it is incorrect to think of technology as something completely separate from our body, because whenever we use it there is an embodied element to that interaction. This embodiment has an impact on how we navigate virtual spaces.
How, then, can oral history use this idea of immersive or interactive digital experiences to provide audiences with more information about the narrator’s embodied experiences and the embodied aspects of the oral history interview? Oral historians have started to incorporate a wide variety of multimedia aspects into their practice including photography, videography, mapping, and virtual reality. Many of these practices allow us to maintain the sense of space and embodiment of the original interview instead of stripping it away.
Mapping tools like StoryMapper have been used by oral historians, such as Paul McCoy, as a way to “situate our stories, tie them to specific places, and…aid in our ability to understand the world around us.”[12] Tying stories to specific spaces helps the audience feel grounded and understand this story is connected to the real world they live in. The Halsey Bergland’s Scapes Project used a mapping tool combined with location-based audio recording to create an interactive walking tour. This tour allowed visitors to experience the exhibited artwork and the larger world through the recorded stories and observations of previous visitors.[13] Both of these techniques used technology to tell stories but also engage the audience in an embodied experience.
The possibilities of how we can use digital technologies in oral history are endless, and new tools are constantly being developed and made available. Because so few people have used these tools within oral history, few have attempted to develop best practices for them. As Doug Boyd has noted in Oral History in the Digital Age, “there are no simple set of ‘best practices’ for digital oral history/narrative projects. The best practices for your project depend on a number of issues, including funding, context, setting, and support.”[14] It is wise, however, to keep in mind that using the web and digital tools to curate oral histories often leaves that information vulnerable, and so it would not be wise to use these tools for any projects where safety or confidentiality might be issues. John Neuenschwander addresses some of the important legal aspects to keep in mind when using the internet for oral history in his book A Guide to Oral History and the Law. [15]
EEven with the challenges that digital tools may pose to curating oral histories, the benefits they bring of creating accessible and immersive experiences are important to recognize. To conclude this paper we will take a look at a recent exhibit I constructed using virtual tour technology and discuss the ways in which illuminating the embodied aspect of oral history allowed visitors to have a deeper understanding of JR’s story.
Gumbs, “Repetition is Sacred,” 209.
For more information about the development of the preservation of oral histories see Mary Marshall Clark entry on “Oral History,” in the Encyclopedia of Life Writing: Autobiographical and Biographical Forms.
“Archiving Oral History,” Oral History Association, adopted October, 2019.
Portelli, The Death of Luigi Trastulli, 47.
Friedman, “Oral History, Hermeneutics, and Embodiment,” 299.
ibid.
Eric Marcus in “Season 2: Episode 3: Hal Call,” Making Gay History, podcast audio, March 16, 2017.
For an analysis on a way to use oral history and performance to engage audiences see “‘I Know How It Is When Nobody Sees You:’ Oral History Performance Methods for Staging Trauma” by Nikki Yeboah. Also see Amy Starecheski’s work on the Mott Haven Oral History Project, for an example of how mapping oral history and creating walking tours can create embodied experiences for the listeners. For a longer analysis of the important role whole body interaction (WBI) can have in curating stories see “Digital Museum Installations: The Role of the Body in Creativity” by Sara Price in the book Digital Bodies, 221-234.
Patrick Gallagher in “Interchange: The Promise of Digital History,” Journal of American History 95, no. 2 (September 2008), 470.
Benford, “Forward,” Digital Bodies, vi.
Susan Broadhurst and Sarah Price, “Introduction, ”Digital Bodies: Creativity and Technology in the Arts and Humanities (Palgrave Macmillan, London: 2017), 2.
Paul McCoy, ““Case Study: StoryMapper– A Case Study in Map-based Oral History,” in Oral History in the Digital Age, edited by Doug Boyd, Steve Cohen, Brad Rakerd, and Dean Rehberger. Washington, D.C.: Institute of Museum and Library Services, 2012.
Mark Tebeau, “Case Study: Visualizing Oral History,” Oral History in the Digital Age, edited by Doug Boyd, Steve Cohen, Brad Rakerd, and Dean Rehberger (2012).
Doug Boyd, “Best Practices,” Oral History in the Digital Age, Washington, D.C.: Institute of Museum and Library Services, 7 Aug. 2012.
John A. Neuenschwander, A Guide to Oral History and the Law Second edition, Oxford Oral History Series (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2014), 91-102.
