Oral History in Latin America: Unlocking the Spoken Archive by David Carey Jr. (review)

In Oral History in Latin America, David Carey Jr. presents a provocative book meant to “provide a synthesis of the impressive range of oral history scholarship . . . that also serves as a practical guide to conducting oral history in the region in light of its unique linguistic, cultural, political, and social milieu” (2). In this, Carey, who is professor of history and holder of the Doehler Chair in History at Loyola University, Maryland, as well as a prolific scholar, succeeds. Drawing on two decades of work in Guatemala and his vast knowledge of oral history, Carey contributes greatly to our understanding of the contributions of Latin American oral historians to the methodology and theory of oral history.

Oral History in Latin America is a welcome addition to recent work on Latin America. In 2012 the Oral History Forum d’histoire oral published a special issue titled “Oral History in Latin America” (32, no. 2). In 2016, the publication of Memory, Subjectivities, and Representation: Approaches to Oral History in Latin America, Portugal, and Spain (New York: Palgrave Macmillan), edited by Rina Benmayor, María Eugenia Cardenal de la Nuez, and Pilar Domínguez Prats, brought us eleven essays by scholars in Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking nations. Carey’s book gives us the opportunity to look at Latin American oral history from the perspective of a US historian with a long relationship to the region. His work is exciting and valuable.

Orality has existed throughout the history of humanity; we know, of course, that the field of oral history is much more recent. Carey points to the 1970s as the beginning of Latin American oral history as a methodology and practice, while acknowledging the importance of orality to Indigenous people both before and since contact with Europeans. In the twentieth century, elites used oral histories to justify their power. Latin American testimonios emerged in the second half of the twentieth century and provided a new perspective on orality and oral history, as narrators worked with interviewers to address such matters as power imbalances, community history, and marginalization. That has led us to consider deeply the meaning of memory and the uses of history.

Carey’s book is organized into seven topical chapters: “Techniques of Oral History,” “Archiving and Dissemination,” “Ethics, Power and Activism,” “Language, Translation, and Performance,” “Interpretation and Memory,” “Topical Oral History,” and “Oral Life History and Testimonios”; its conclusion takes a look at oral history in twenty-first century Latin America. In many ways, Carey’s book addresses topics that may be found in other books on oral history methodology. Incorporating specific and numerous Latin American case studies, however, makes this a distinctive and extremely worthwhile book. For example, in discussing the process of vetting a project, Carey includes an informative discussion of the IRB process but points out that in Latin America, community elders and leaders must also vet the researcher’s proposal. For those of us who work in Indigenous communities, Latinx communities, or other marginalized groups in the United States, we can learn much from Latin American scholars.

There are certain themes throughout the book that highlight the Latin American experience and will resonate with oral historians working in marginalized communities anywhere. Trauma and activism in a region that has experienced extreme violence—disappearances, extreme poverty, state violence, and dirty wars—are examples of these complex themes. In “Talking through Trauma,” Carey writes that “what can be liberating for some can be debilitating for others” (43). He asks how, then, can we “know” a traumatic history if it cannot be communicated by those experiencing it? And in cases where the narrator can express the horror, how does the interviewer handle listening to it? Interviewers must be aware that asking narrators to discuss a traumatic past may put their and the narrators’ lives in danger: if they are speaking about war crimes, their oral history might be subpoenaed, so the oral historian...