Oral History — Oral History Method

Oral history is a qualitative research method that collects, preserves, and interprets first-person spoken accounts of past events, experiences, and social processes. By recording in-depth interviews with individuals who witnessed or participated in historical events, oral historians document perspectives that written records often exclude. The method bridges historical scholarship and social science, treating the narrator's memory, subjectivity, and voice as primary evidence rather than as limitations to be corrected.