Conference of the American Oral History Association

On October 30-November 2, 2024, the 58th Annual Conference of the American Oral History Association (OHA) "Oral History: Bridging Past, Present, and Future" took place.

Center's researcher and coordinator of the documentary initiative "24.02.2022, 5 am: Testimonies from the War," Dr. Natalia Otrishchenko joined the conference as a participant of the roundtable "Recording the Stories of the Russo-Ukrainian War: Challenges, Risks, and Methodological Approaches." This event, as well as the panel "Understanding the Diversity of War Experiences: The Case of Ukraine" was organized by the Ukrainian Oral History Association.

The conference became an important platform for presenting Ukrainian experience in conducting emergency and longitudinal documentation projects in the context of Russia's full-scale war against Ukraine. In addition, a number of panels and workshops were devoted to the use of digital tools in oral history. Columbia University's INCITE Institute offered a workshop on "Curating Oral Histories with Data and AI," where participants considered the specifics of using artificial intelligence in working with interview datasets. Douglas Boyd of the University of Kentucky presented changes to the OHMS system at the session "Enhancing Digital Access to Oral History Collections." Independent researcher Geri Huntley spoke about the technology of the community-oriented project OurStoryBridge, which works in the format of short interviews and aims to build relationships between generations through storytelling.

Meetings of research associations are a significant space for networking and visibility. They help to build and maintain connections between researchers. It is important for us that the Center's projects are part of a broader conversation about the peculiarities of working in a threatened present and the longer duration of digital archives.

Natalia's participation in the conference was supported by the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies (CIUS) and an international scholarship from OHA.

Credits

Cover Image and Gallery: photos by Natalia Otrishchenko, Viktoriia Nesterenko