ABSTRACT
Given the possibilities that oral history interviews – whether they exist on tapes, as digital recordings, or as transcripts-offer historical research, in the near future it is likely that researchers of the late Victorian and Edwardian periods will utilise them in their research. We are beginning to unlock their potential as sources, and even the secondary analysis of transcripted data is beginning to be discussed (Boddy et al. 2006; Bornat 2002; England and Bacchini 2012; Lyon and Thurgood 2007; Richardson and Godfrey 2003; P. Thompson 2003; Walters 2009; Wiles et al. 2006). However, there is some way to go before we can say that we have a mature understanding of how to best use these unique and interesting sources. In this chapter it is the ethical use of these sources that interests us. How can we devise an approved set of practices around these sources, and should we even try? Do dead people have rights? There are defamation laws (1952, 1996 Defamation Acts) which enable people to take legal action in the courts if someone made untrue or harmful statements about them, and indeed The Oral History Society tell us that very prominently in their advice on how to carry out oral history interviews. They remind us that ‘[a] defamatory statement is one with a tendency to injure the reputation of another person (or organisation, company or business)’ but end by stating, with emphasis: ‘Statements relating to dead people are not subject to the law of defamation’ (https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9781315886299/f273d81c-e55f-49cc-a374-a6201f39f447/content/www.ohs.org.uk" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">www.ohs.org.uk). Do the words that interviewees have freely given to researchers in interviews have a special privilege which means we cannot interpret their meaning? Does that privilege become redundant when the person originally interviewed dies (Plummer 1983: 143)? If the person carrying out the analysis did not carry out the original interview, but is merely reading a typescript of the interview, can he or she fully understand what the words mean – does the relationship built up between original interviewer and interviewee give them the right to interpret the meanings and emotions that are conveyed? It seems appropriate that we now explore these and other questions within the framework of an 65(imagined) interview about the conduct and subsequent analysis of oral history interviews: Interviewer
When you sit down with someone for a few hours and discuss intimate subjects I imagine that there is some kind of relationship created between the interviewer and the interviewee?
