Sites of Retelling: Place, Space, Objects and Memory

• In Event: Life Stages and Identity

Abstract

This paper draws on a larger collaborative project (http://tangible-memories.com/) that has brought together an interdisciplinary team to work in three care homes for the elderly to examine the connections between oral histories and material objects, both as memory prompts and means of engaging others with life histories. Utilizing a range of innovative digital interfaces and a methodology of co-production with elderly residents, the project team has experimented with ways of both capturing and communicating oral histories. In this paper, I focus in on one element of the project of wider implications for oral history practitioners and theorists. How does the place of retelling (and re-listening) change the nature of the stories being told (and listened to)? Focusing in on the individuals in one of the homes, the paper explores the different stories told to different people in different contexts. Residents were interviewed within the home both individually and in a group setting, and were also re-interviewed, again individually and in a group setting, in the city museum and then in the city museum store. The paper explores the ways in which these changes of setting, and in particular the impact of shifting material objects as tangible memory prompts, shaped the telling both of different stories and stories differently. With a focus on materiality, place and space, the paper seeks to contribute to nascent work on geographies of oral histories. But it is also interested in how experiences of other places (and things) are communicated within the often-times closed world of care homes for the elderly and the possibilities for ‘smart objects’ to engage others with oral histories.

Author

• Tim Cole, University of Bristol