ABSTRACT
Ignoring the historical location of individual action is a potentially oppressive, pathologising strategy, which fails to take account of the dynamics of social change in which individuals participate. This chapter discusses the important issue of understanding people in specific historical times and places, and draws on the insights of a number of disciplines in order to do this. In particular, it draws on history and oral history, life-course sociology and life history research methods, and lifespan developmental psychology. The ability of oral history techniques to illuminate the lives of people who belong to the dominated groups within our society has much to offer an antioppressive approach to social research. The focus of history is upon the exploration of human pasts, interpreting human documents and human testimony in the context of these multiple details, and of the wider historical patterns and influences which bear upon particular lives.
