Oral History Society Annual Conference
Oral History Society Annual Conference: 2012
The next OHS annual conference, Displaced Childhoods: Oral history and traumatic experiences will take place in Reading on 13-14 July 2012. The conference aims to bring together oral history practitioners who explore the topic of disturbed, disrupted and traumatic childhoods within academic, community and therapeutic settings.
Oral history interviewing has been increasingly utilised as a way of exploring the effects of war, evacuation and conflict on children, as well as former children; the treatment and welfare of children living in war zones and the wider disruption to family life. This conference aims to address both internal migration and the global movement of children from countries such as Spain, Germany, the former Yugoslavia and Iraq throughout the course of the twentieth century, in particular its long-term psychological and emotional impact. Other themes the conference will address include the 'Forgotten Children' forcibly migrated to Australia/USA/Canada, childhood experience of natural and civil disasters, disrupted childhoods, long-term separation and segregation including children's homes, hospitalisation, and the development of therapeutic environments for children and young people with emotional, social and behavioural disorders. We'd like to hear from people who have worked with fostering, crime and juvenile delinquency, children of alcoholic or mentally disturbed parents, young people in mental institutions or those who have grown up in violent households. The event will be held in association with the Research Centre for Evacuee and War Child Studies, University of Reading
Papers are invited which draw on current projects or recently completed work using oral history and related methods which address these topics. We would particularly welcome papers on the methodological and ethical issues surrounding working with traumatic or potentially traumatic narratives of childhood – how to deal with sensitive issues, the question of interviewing adults recalling their childhood selves, reflection on the interview process and the experience of recording with children and the use of oral history within therapeutic contexts. The conference will be of interest to all those working in the field of oral history.
Please send an abstract of no more than 400 words by 31 December 2011 to Belinda Waterman: Department of History, University of Essex Wivenhoe Park, Colchester, CO4 3SQ Belinda@essex.ac.uk +44 (0)1206 872313
