Remembering Blaenavon: What Can Group Interviews Tell Us about “Collective Memory”?

The nature of the relationship between individual and collective memories is still a central concern in oral history research. This paper suggests that group oral history interviews, despite their methodological and interpretive challenges, can reveal a more nuanced, multilayered process of remembering which happens in the space between the individual and the all-consuming cultural narrative. Specifically, the paper analyzes a group interview with seven ex-miners at Big Pit Coal Mining Museum (South Wales). The article touches on themes of gender, postindustrialism, group identity, and power to illustrate the many ways in which memory is constructed and negotiated in social groups.