--so they understand : : cultural issues in oral history / / William Schneider.

• Author: Schneider, William.
• Year of Publication: 2002
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (207 pages) :; illustrations
• Notes: "Documentation, representation, presentation, and interpretation, illustrated with stories from South Africa, Alaska, and the Yukon."

Illustrated with numerous stories collected from Alaska, the Yukon, and South Africa and further enlivened by the author's accessible style and experiences as a longtime oral historian and archivist, So They Understand is a comprehensive study of the special challenges and concerns involved in documenting, representing, preserving, and interpreting oral narratives. The title of the book comes from a quotation by Chief Peter John, the traditional chief of the Tanana Chiefs region in central Alaska: ""In between the lines is something special going on in their minds, and that has--

Table of Contents

Intro -- Contents -- Illustrations -- Acknowledgments -- part one How Stories Work -- one Introduction -- two A Career Full of Stories -- three What's in a Story -- four Sorting Out Oral Tradition and Oral History -- part two Types of Stories -- five Personal Narratives Shared One to Another -- six Gathering to Tell Stories: The Neglected Genre of Oral History -- seven In Search of the Story: Interviewers and Their Narrators -- eight Life Histories: The Constructed Genre -- part three Issues Raised by Stories -- nine The Whole Truth and Nothing but the Truth -- ten Issues of Representation -- eleven Intellectual Property Rights and the Public Unfinished Business -- twelve The Public Record -- Appendix A: Oral History Gift and Release Agreement -- Appendix B: Interview Restrictions -- Appendix C: Internet Use of Oral History Programs -- Notes -- References -- Index.