Critical Oral History — Critical Oral History Research

Critical oral history applies a critical theory lens to the collection and analysis of first-person spoken accounts of lived experience. It goes beyond preserving personal memory to interrogate how power, identity, race, class, gender, and structural inequality shape what is remembered, what is silenced, and how stories are told. Originating in the work of Alessandro Portelli and the critical turn in oral history from the 1970s onward, the approach treats oral testimony not simply as evidence of the past but as a site of meaning-making and political contestation.