The Street Will Eat You Up: Documenting Social Change through Oral History of a City Neighbourhood (20 Street, Saskatoon, Canada)

• In Event: Public History Sites and Community Oral History Projects

Abstract

Oral History of 20th Street is a five year research project coordinated by me and conducted in collaboration with the students enrolled in my third year anthropology course "Oral History and Storytelling: Anthropological Perspectives." 20th Street of Saskatoon, Canada, with its vicinities, is a typical core city neighbourhood that knew many highs and many lows in the course of its layered and dynamic history. Populated by different kinds of people, in terms of socioeconomics, culture and ethnicity, recently it reached the reputation of ‘best to be avoided’. In 2012, the first group of students started the project in the community for the first time. Audio and video interviews were recorded with various individuals who live and/or work in the neighbourhood and who represent its various constituencies. A year later, two other groups of students stepped in to conduct further interviewing and to design the presentation of our research findings. By discussing our work and its outcomes (a documentary and a web archives and exhibit), in the proposed presentation I will focus on how oral history, as a research tool and the form of engagement, generates knowledge and understanding of social change, in our case, in a dynamic urban setting of Western Canada. What first appeared to be a ‘past-oriented’ project, ended up being a project that effectively documented the oftentimes conflicting sociocultural change in the neighbourhood. How do the stories recorded in the neighbourhood speak to each other? How do they reveal the complexity of the neighbourhood’s social history and its today’s developments? How did the project affect students’ understanding of the neighbourhood? How can the project help others to appreciate the diverse group of people whose work and life is linked to the Street? These and other questions will be the focus of my presentation.

Author

• Natalia Khanenko–Friesen, University of Saskatchewan and St. Thomas More College