Special Issue: Oral Histories and Design (review)

In 2006, the Journal of Design History devoted a special issue to “Oral Histories and Design.” The result is an excellent example of how another discipline, design history, can and has used oral history as a research methodology as well as a tool to critically evaluate itself—thus pushing both fields in directions neither has often wandered. From architecture to dress studies, and from transcript analysis to video oral history, the articles in this issue span the two disciplines in content, as well as draw upon work from around the globe. The case studies included in this issue, of which only a few are synopsized in this review, involve research from the U.S., China, Canada, and England. They show that design history, as enriched here by oral history, is steeped in culture but easily crosses borders and relies upon both underground systems of communicating design as well as mass media inlets and outlets. The gratifying part of exploring the uses of oral history to inform another field of research is that one gains access to the subtleties of that field in addition to gaining new insights on oral history itself.

This dual gain is most prevalent in Catherine Jo Ishino’s article, “Seeing is Believing: Reflections on Video Oral Histories with Chinese Graphic Designers.” Her oral histories span three generations of Chinese designers, highlighting differences and providing a lens to “distinct perspectives on the PRC’s rapid economic growth, particularly as these changes placed extraordinary demands on design and designers locally …. PRC designers must have felt the pressure of history to broaden their design identity and sensibilities, especially given their previously isolated state” (323). Ishino grounds the knowledge that by using video oral history, not only can artists’ words express their work, so can their dress, gestures of enthusiasm, and, quite importantly, their workspace. As she describes in one young designer’s case, the lifestyle of an artist can emerge when documented through video. Ishino writes, “During the interview, students were shooting flash pictures and asking for his autograph to be penned on their shirts. Song, too, had signatures scrawled across his white, open collared and loose flapping dress shirt …” (326). Ishino’s article layers multiple aspects of her experience with oral history on this project, namely in cross-cultural and cross-gender interviewing (e.g., a Japanese-American woman interviewing Chinese men and the experience of using an interpreter), and her past work in the news media.

A common thread among the authors in this issue is that of a multiplicity of angles when looking at how oral history is useful in examining a subject. One might think of it as the kaleidoscope oral history provides to any subject within history, including itself. Certainly as several authors point out, the oral history interview is not conducted in a vacuum; it is in itself a constructed product and producer of context that cannot be excluded from analysis.

Arlene Oak discusses this construction in her article, “Particularizing the Past: Persuasion and Value in Oral History Interview and Design Critiques.” Oak delves into the field of Discursive Social Psychology (DSP), which gives the reader an avenue to think about oral history as a way for narrators to create meaning and authority by referencing the past. DSP is a constructivist approach to examining the performances of interview and critique. Oak posits that this kind of talk, or particularization of the past, is “actively used to represent reality and persuade others” (347). This particularization “is seen to speak legitimately. Their words have value and persuasive power” (348). She continues to comment that “the past becomes an instrument of the present with some potential to influence the positions, perspectives, and artefacts of the future” (354).

Not only does the journal explore the nuances of oral history as a methodology but also it demonstrates how oral history can be used to explore the nuances of the human spirit. Liz Linthicum’s article on using oral history in...