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When conducting oral history,you deliberately enter into another person’s life.To say it more colloquially, oral history involves sticking your nose into other people’s business. Questions of ethics and politics come into play in any human interaction but all the more so when you undertake a project intended for the general public. Before doing anything to implement a project, you must consider the ethical and political issues surrounding oral history research. Two anecdotes illustrate the range of dilemmas one is likely to confront. A student of mine visited a local hog farmer to learn about his operation, the changes he’s seen in agriculture, and his experiences living in a rural community.The interview went well; the student gathered a great deal of information, and the farmer enjoyed the opportunity to reflect on his daily work in response to the questions posed. After the interview, the farmer asked the student if he’d like to stay for supper. Since home-cooked meals are a rare treat for college students, the student readily accepted. Not surprisingly , the main dish turned out to be pork. My student, a vegetarian , was faced with a dilemma. He didn’t want to offend his  ChapterThree Ethics and Politics in Oral History Research By Howard L. Sacks F host, who took pride in the food he raised. Indeed, he hoped to build a relationship with this farmer so that he might conduct further interviews. But eating meat violated his personal ethic.What was he to do? The second story concerns a project on rural diversity. People in rural communities often assume that everyone around them thinks and believes pretty much as they do. Members of minority populations exist in nearly every town, but typically their numbers are small, so they don’t challenge this assumption of homogeneity. One reason that rural dwellers find urban sprawl unappealing is its social consequences: New sorts of people enter the community, and this entails learning how to engage diversity. To address this issue, my students conducted oral histories with individuals from various minority communities in our area. Irish Catholics were part of the region’s frontier settlement. Belgians arrived more than a century ago to work in the glass factories. Hispanic migrants are more recent arrivals; some work as agricultural laborers. And several Indian physicians now have thriving practices in a range of specialties. We approached a county newspaper with the idea of writing a series of essays on each of these communities.The editor was so delighted with the idea that she offered us twenty pages in the special magazine the newspaper publishes annually about the county’s past and present.We gave the editor a list of the communities we had in mind, and she approved. Everyone was enthusiastic, and the students began their oral history work. The essays were delivered to the newspaper on time, but a week before the publication date, we received a phone call from the agitated editor.When the paper’s owner stopped by to look at the magazine’s layout, she noticed that one of the essays was about the local gay and lesbian community.The owner objected vigorously and issued an ultimatum: Drop the essay or risk having the entire series canceled.This project represented a year’s work for my students.In addition,we had told everyone in these Ethics and Politics in Oral History Research F  communities that the essays would be published.What should we have done? ’    Words embed complex meanings and attitudes,so how we refer to those we interview carries implications for how we treat them. Market researchers and political pollsters usually refer to the people who answer their questions as respondents.That’s an accurate description. People answering surveys are given limited choices: yes or no, agree or disagree, choose a point on a continuum between not important at all and very important, or choose from a list of product names or presidential primary contenders. Traditionally, oral historians have called the people they interview informants, which acknowledges their primary role in providing information to a researcher.But it also minimizes their active role in shaping the narrative that constitutes the oral history , suggesting that they have little control over the questions asked or the use of the information. Informant also has the negative connotation of being associated with an informer—a usually anonymous informant who meets a police contact in a sleazy bar or a dark corner of a parking garage.That...

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