ABSTRACT
The oral history encounter has been described as a 'semi-structured interview'. This chapter focuses on how one can structure questions to move naturally from factual, ice-breaking information to a deeper exploration as trust and rapport grow. It presents a list of scripted questions to cover the necessary ground. The questions include facts and information about the narrator, their perceptions and attitudes, their specific points for or against the proposals, the narrator's embedded expertise and local knowledge and the narrators' policy recommendations. Oral history has been described as a bottom-up research method, and even as a 'decolonizing' approach that restores power to the voiceless and the dispossessed. Oral historians have given a lot of attention recently to power-dynamics between interviewer and narrator, even in the gathering of apparently 'simple' oral histories. Interviews are the heart of the project, where one can find the hidden gold—the new information and perspectives that can change the minds of policy-makers and improve their plans.
