Oral History Society

Oral History across Generations: Age, Generational Identity and Oral Testimony Author(s): Sally Chandler Source: Oral History, Vol. 33, No. 2, Memory Work (Autumn, 2005), pp. 48-56 Published by: Oral History Society Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40179869 . Accessed: 01/04/2014 03:52
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ORAL

HISTORY ACROSS

GENERATIONS: AGE,
IDENTITY GENERATIONAL AND

ORAL

TESTIMONY

by Sally Chandler
ABSTRACT
KEYWORDS: oral history; methodology; agegeneration; cultural scripts

Oral historians are well aware that subjectivity - both our subjects' and our own - shapes the content and interpretation of our work. At the same time, and though oral history often encompasses intergenerational talk, oral historians have yet to develop in-depth theory and method to account for variations in subjective identity arising from differences in age and generational cohort. This essay surveys findings from life-course development research which characterize the (often unconscious) divergences of interpretation and understanding arising within intergenerational communication. Close analyses of oral histories created by college students and elder subjects suggest patterns through which age-related differences reported by life-course development research can drive the focus and content of interviews, and influence interpretation of collected materials.
In her reflectiveconsideration of new directions for oral historians in the new millennium, ShernaGluck observes how our conception of oral history has evolved 'from first generation oral historiansto the fourthand beyond'.1 Gluck emphasizes both the rich diversitywithin each generationand the characteristicfeaturesidentifying different cohorts' theory and practice. What is true for oral historians is true for subjects: individual subjects tend to be both distinctlythemselves, and members of generational cohorts with characteristicassumptions, values and patterns for communication.What is more, when individuals talk across generation these differencescan producegenerational or age-relatedmeaningswhich both enrichand complicateour work as oral historians. In the late seventies, Luisa Passerini

Wayne State University student, Rebecca Schneider (left), works on an oral history project with Henrietta Lucky (http:// www.english. wayne. edu/People /faculty /rayr/ WebWork/index. htm)

observed that oral sources can represent 'a manifestation of a subjective reality which enables us to write historyfrom a novel dimension unconsidered by traditional historiogra-

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phy'.2This observationunderpinspresent day oral history's ongoing assumption that '[subjectivity is as much the business of oral Subjechistoryas are the more visible "facts"'.3 tivity evolves as a dynamic entity shaped by complex interactionsamong dominantcultural discourses or scripts, local variants of those scripts,and individualpsychologicaland social experienceswithin,a particularsocial context. To account for these complex dynamics, oral historianshave devotedmuch energyto recording in-depth depictions of subjectivity in its many raced, classed and gendered variations.4 Oral historians have also attended to how movementthroughand within age and generationalidentityinfluencesboth our participation within cultural discourses and our growth as individuals, but this aspect of identity has received less focused study.5As a result, we have yet to undertakein-depthconsiderationof and age-related dimensionsof how generational subjectivitycan shape what and how material becomes available within interviews, or how that materialis interpreted.In this essay,I give a brief overview of life-course development of how patterns researchers'characterizations for communicationand interpretationchange across the lifespan. Then, through analysis of talk and writing surrounding oral history projectscreated by college students with elder subjects, I present a contextual discussion of how this research might enrich our understanding of interview dynamics and the interpretationof materialswhen we are of an age or generationdifferentfrom our subject.
LIFE-COURSE DEVELOPMENT RESEARCH

Life-course developmentresearchassumesthat psychological, moral, cognitive and identity development takes place throughoutthe lifespan by movement through a series of general Workto broadendefinitionsof develpatterns.6 opment or to considerdifferencesarisingfrom race, class or gender have complicatedgeneral models by indicatingthat, among other things, neither the standardsfor maturity,the defininor the measuresthrough tions of development, which we describe these features are free of cultural bias.7 At the same time and despite persistentevidence that individualidentityand context influenceboth the natureand timingof development, research tends to validate three generalobservations:that social, cognitive and psychological processes change over the life course; that the forms and functions of these of a particular processesare often characteristic life stage; and that membershipin a particular generational cohort influences the cultural storiesavailableto individualsfor the construcof identity. tion and interpretation

Becauselife-coursedevelopmentresearchis a burgeoningarea of study,it is not possible to do justice to the breadth and particularityof findings,and I have limited discussion to three areasof life-coursedevelopmentresearchwhich include a focus on the processes, functionsand effects of human recollection. These areas are reminiscencestudies,autobiographical memory researchand psychologicalstudiesof agingand cognition. Reminiscence,'the process of recalling personallyexperiencedepisodes from one's past', is central to the practice of oral history, and is an object of study in all three areas.8As pointed out by JoannaBornat,an oral historian and reminiscence researcher,studies of reminiscenceand oral historyconsidersimilarissues but with a differentfocus. These issues include 'contextsfor remembering, the effect of trauma on remembering, the interview relationship, ethics, the nature of memory [and] the role of in establishing identities'.9 Studies remembering of autobiographical memory have similar concerns but with an emphasis on how much and how well individuals recollect, as well as why and what in particular they remember.10 Autobiographical memory researchis strongly connectedto work in cognitivepsychology,and its methods for collecting and reporting data reflectthe quantitative,scientificorientationof the discipline. To focus discussion still more sharply, I discuss only studies which bear upon three particularconcerns: 1) how membership in a generational cohort structures the form and function of processes for recollection; 2) how age affects both the individual'sconceptualizalocations of self and other,and the individual's tion within the cultural stories through which those conceptualizationsare constructed;and 3) how the form and functionof autobiographical memories shift as we move through the lifespan. COHORTS:FORMS GENERATIONAL AND FUNCTIONS FOR REMEMBERING In her work on individual autobiographical memories and collective narratives,Katherine Nelson argues that 'personalautobiographical related memoryis functionallyand structurally to ... cultural myths and social narratives'.11 That is, according to Nelson, both cultural myths and autobiographicalmemory provide bases for constructingcoherent stories for who we are, both as individuals and within a community. In her review of differences in generational cohorts in the United States, Nelson finds that cohorts raisedduringthe first half of twentieth century - children of the Depression and the War years - create autobiographicalmemories with different forms and
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Wayne State is University located at the culturalcentre of Detroit,Michigan. Lookingwest on WarrenAvenue, we see the yellow bricktowers of Old Main Hall (SallyChandler)

functionsthan the generationfor the latterhalf: 'baby boomers', children of the fifties through to the early seventies, and membersof 'Generation X', young adults currently in their late teens and early twenties. Accordingto Nelson, while childrenfrom the first half of the century engaged in identity formation though participation in collective narratives 'purveyed through school, community and church', cohorts born in the latter half of this same centurygrew up in a culture where 'individual familieswere responsiblefor conveying [social histories and identities]'.12Nelson concludes that because of this shift from communally transferredto individuallyconstructed narratives for identity stories, autobiographical memoriesin twenty-firstcenturyUnited States serve functions previouslyperformedby larger culturalnarratives. As Passerini points out in her reviewof work by FriggaHaug, MarrietteClaire and Richard Johnson,and by Annette Kuhn, the individual experienceswhich shape any generation'sautobiographical memories remain structured by these largerculturalnarratives.15 For example, within the United States individual identities are constructed within national, collective stories of 'success through hard work', 'freedom' and 'equality'. At the same time, these experiences are raced, classed and gendered and individual subjects resist, conflate, appropriate or transform dominant

culturaldiscourses in ways which reflect their particularsubjectposition(s). Nelson'sdescription of older and younger cohorts' different relationships to and uses of autobiographical memoriesillustratesthe importanceof age and generationas yet anotherdimensionof identity. Consideration of this added dimension can deepen our understandingof subjects'orientations within the collective stories which direct and contain the self representationswhich are the very heart of oral history. BACKGROUND AND PROJECT METHODS Oralhistoriesin this discussionwere createdby students enrolled in intermediate college writing courses taught during the fall of 1999 an urbancommuter at WayneState University, university in Detroit, Michigan. Each student worked with an elder partnerwho came of age in the city of Detroit duringthe first half of the twentieth century. While differences in race, class or gender played a role in individualoral history partnerships, generational identity differencewas an issue within communication dynamicsfor all partners.All studentoral historians were from 'GenerationX' or the tail end of the 'baby boomer' generation, while elder subjectscame from generationswhich grew up in the United States' Great Depression of the 1930s, or duringWorldWar II. Students prepared to create oral histories

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with theirpartners by reading'how to' texts and a rangeof sample oral histories collected from Detroitresidents.14 They also createda timeline of Detroithistory;conductedand wrote up two practiceinterviews (one with a classmate, one with an elder family member);and developed interviewprotocolsfor work with theirpartner. After collecting, transcribing and writing up interviews,studentswrote a focused, narrative discussion of one aspect of their subject'slife, and a reflective analysis of what they learned throughdevelopingan oral history.The following discussiondrawsfromwritingproducedfor all of these assignments.
BRENDA AND DR ALEX WARE 15

with greater frequency than those of his wife and daughter.To account for this difference, Brendawrote: I feel it is importantto include the fact that Dr Ware is from a different generation, with different values and beliefs than my generation.He related his idea of a family with a wife who would fulfillthe traditional role of homemakerand mother. Although his wife attended college and had a degree for teaching,he expected her to be a stay at home wife and mother.. . . duringour meetings he often spoke of his two sons and theiraccomplishments and spoke very little about his daughter and her accomplishments. The sense of men beingmore important than women or more value being placed on men than on women may have to do with race, but I feel that age or generation has a greater bearing on this value system.18 Brenda then pointed out that she interpreted familyand gender quite differently. I was raised to believe that I needed to be able to take care of myself. . . I was not expected to get married,have childrenand raisemy familywhilemy husbandearnedthe familyincome.While my mom was a stayat home mom, my parents felt that a woman neededto be able to makeher own way.[My husbandand I] reacheda point . . . where I did not haveto work . . . howeverI couldnot imaginemy life without my work.19 In this writing Brenda locates Dr Ware within a communal story of familyand gender roles which she representsas widely accepted for his generationbut not for hers. She identifies her parents as the source of her different belief that financial independence and meaningful work are important for women. Her resort to childhood experienceand her parents as the basis for her beliefs supports Nelson's conclusion, and Brenda'sawarenessof shifting relationships between communal stories and generationalidentity seem to have helped her to contextualize and understand Dr Ware's story. However, further analysis of how Brenda'sreflection on generationaldifference affected their interactions suggests a need for oral historians to consider how individual subjects position themselves within generational stories, and how these positions can be complicated by age and cultural assumptions relatedto age. Brenda'sanalysisof Dr Ware'sassumptions about genderbecomes more problematicwhen
Autumn2005 ORAL HISTORY 51

Brenda,a young, white woman born at the tailend of the baby-boomer generation, and Dr Alex Ware, an African American born at the end of the 1920s, were both pleased with the reflective oral historythey created;but Brenda's analysisof her work drew attentionto some of the silences within their conversations.Reflection on these silences, in turn, suggests a need for increasedawarenessregardinghow different generationalcohorts relate experienceand how unconscious constructionof age in terms of culturalstereotypescan lead to the oversimplificationof meanings conveyed within intergenerationaltalk. Brenda,a nurseand the motherof two small children,describesherselfas lower middleclass and part of the majority'.Dr Ware grew up in a poor neighborhoodin Detroit, but went on to earn a doctorate in education and become a of schools. The oral historythey superintendent created focused on how Dr Ware 'overcame many obstacles in his life to achieve his Brendatitled Dr Ware'soral history, dreams'.16 'The Sharecropper'sSon and The Line'. The title refers both to Dr Ware'srural roots - his fathercame north from Alabamaas part of the generation of southern Blacks who came to work in Henry Ford's automobile factories and his struggle to cross the metaphoric diviwherehe grew sion betweenthe neighbourhood up and OaklandAvenue. Both Brendaand Dr Ware constructed this division as engendered in terms of race. primarily While developingthis oral history,Dr Ware and Brenda talked extensively about race. Dr Ware spoke of Brenda as an excellent writer and said she got the focus and tone of his life experiences 'just right'.17This satisfaction reflects their agreement regarding issues connectedto injustice,oppressionand the need for social change- the focus of the oral history. At the same time, Brenda'sreflective analysis observes that Dr Ware talked about his own and his sons' accomplishmentsdifferentlyand

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Becauseof this, the forms elders use we realisethat Brendaand Dr Waredid not talk ual lives'.24 aboutwhat Brendaperceivedas Dr Ware'spriv- to relate their stories may complicate younger ileging of male experience.Brendawrites:'I did listeners' understandingof what they mean to not want to challengehis beliefs or offend. . . I convey. saw nothingto gain by possiblyantagonizingDr WITHIN LOCATION AGE-RELATED Ware.'20Brenda did not talk about women, STORIESOF AGEING CULTURAL gender roles and work out of a reluctance to In response to questions about what students 'challenge','offend' or 'antagonize'Dr Ware. This reluctance reflects both Brenda's expected of theirelder writingpartners,Jessica, consciousness of differences in generational an Asian Americanwrote: identity,and her assumptionsabout ageing and I imagined a bunch of old guys with their age-related behavior. It also suggests that novice oral historiansmay decide which topics pants pulled past their belly. . . whose hobbies consisted mostly of playing bingo. to open and which to avoid on the basis of I pictured a group of white ladies sitting assumptions about subjects' beliefs, and an around a table reminiscing about their accompanying desire not to 'challenge' those beliefs. This tendency resonates with findings grandkids. I assumed that these would be the type of seniorswho drive 35 mph in the by ageing and cognition researcherswho find 55 mph zone. I thought these would be that eldersand theirbeliefs often receivespecial typical seniors that count out every last 'respect' from younger adult interviewers due to prevailing cultural assumptions that elders penny from their pocket before deciding that they [don't] have the properchange at become set in their ways.21This assumption the grocerystore.25 leads younger interviewers to assume, with Brenda, that raising an alternativeperspective These expectations reflect the 'Americanor necessarily results in offence. Both lifespan researchand, eventually,Dr Ware'ssubsequent (Western) . . . cultural construction of old age ... as "declining","close to death","inactive", remarks, indicate that this assumption is not Age-related research on necessarilythe rule. After the project'scomple- "sick"and the like'.26 tion Dr Warerevealedthat not only did he and cognition suggests that we form these negative beliefs about ageing and cognitive abilities his wife engage in on-going discussion of the wisdom of their decision that she stay at home, when we are young, and, like scripts for reprebut that they, like Brenda's parents, strongly senting life stories, they remainrelativelystable 27 supported their daughter'sindependence and across the lifespan. According to Ray, who work. Dr Ware was surprised and dismayed cites sociolinguists studying spoken discourse, '. . . young people regularly "overaccommothat Brenda had interpreted him as still invested in his generation'spatternsfor gender date" their talk to older adults, targetingtheir discrimination.His psychologicalrepositioning speech not to the individual per se but to the within his cohort'sgenerational storyfor gender social persona of an "elderlycommunicator," roles is in keepingwith lifespanresearchwhich whom they generallycharacterizeas incompeshows that older adults 'are just as flexible as tent, slow, old-fashionedand inflexible'.28 To make thingsmore complicated,American in to in adults changes responding younger culturalstoriesof eldersas failing,close to death At the same time, Dr sociopolitical climate'.22 and irrelevantare embeddedwithin their oppoWare'spatternfor representingand valuing his familyand children,one which privilegedmale site - a story of age as a journey that brings wisdom. In this cultural story,old age is to be experience and accomplishments through its form rather than its intent, is also in keeping emulated and respected, both because it helps us understandthe past, and because it teaches with lifespan research. Reminiscence researcherRuth Ray writes that while lifespan us how betterto understandthe future.Writing research finds that elders engage in on-going by another student, Ellen, a white, 'Generation psychologicalchangewith respect to social and X' studentfrom a wealthyDetroit suburb,illuspersonal issues, it does not find accompanying trates this complementary stereotype. She writes: 'I believe strongly that with age comes change in the scripts through which elders while elders' That life stories. their is, experience and with experience comes knowlrepresent of who they are and edge'.29 internalconceptualizations As studentsmet and workedwith theirelder how they relateto others evolve throughoutthe lifespan,elders may continue to representtheir writing partners, they moved quickly from new perspectivesthroughpatternswhich were predispositionsfor stereotypesof 'age as decay' to stereotypesof 'age as repositoryof wisdom,' fixed in a much earlierlife stage.23 Accordingto Ray,'changes that take place in culturalscripts but even when confronted with the detail and they lag far behind those that take place in individ- complexity of elders' self-representations,
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did not step wholly outside of cultural representations for their senior partners. This is in keepingwith studies from social cognition and ageing which report that as we move through the life course, conceptualizationof self moves from 'those with little differentiationbetween self and other and heavy influence from social conventionstoward definitionsthat emphasize contextual, process-related, and idiosyncratic Thatis, as we grow from featuresof selfhood'.30 youth to late-life,we move away from defining ourselves and others primarilyin terms of the cultural stories available to us, and begin to develop definitions in terms of 'contextual, process-related, and idiosyncratic features' which reflect the conflicted and sometimes incoherentdetails of lived-experience.In light of this, student difficulties with stepping into interpretations which contradicted or fell wholly outside of the cultural scripts available to them, are understandablenot as failings in analysis,but as characteristicsof their stage in development. How elder subjects are named within their oral histories providesone more illustrationof the complex relationships among identity, perceptionand representationwhich affect the translation of experience into words. In all cases pseudonymsused in this essay are exactly parallelto how students referredto their partners in theirwriting.Althoughthe elder subject in the first exampleis referredto as 'Dr Ware', in general, most elder subjects, both male and female, were referred to by their first names only, and throughout this article, I refer to students by first names. In the one other case where an elder partner held an advanced degree,she was also referredto by surnameand title. While writing from this project does not provide sufficientinformationto infer generational assumptions which underlie most of these choices for naming, the identificationby title of the elders with advanced degrees, both

male and female, suggests investment in selfrepresentations in terms of cultural designations of their individual achievement. These preferences may connect to identities structured by social scripts associated with generaAt the same time, tion, or with race and class.31 other features of elders' representationsillustratedthe movement away from social conventions and 'toward definitions that emphasize contextual, process-related, and idiosyncratic featuresof selfhood' reportedby the literature.
JESSICA AND REBECCA

The Hannan Senior Creative Writing Group at the Luella Hannan, a non-profit organization serving the needs of Detroit area older adults. Members of the Creative Writing Group often worked with students as writing partners for oral history projects

Jessica, the Asian American student who expected to meet old white ladies reminiscing about theirgrandkids, developedan oral history with Rebecca, an African American woman whose life story clearly did not fit the cultural story of hard work overcoming injustice, and whose resilient spirit and attitude defied Western stories of age. In interviews, Rebecca told a story of a life of honest, hard work that went unrecognized and unrewarded. Jessica's reflective analysis of her work with Rebecca states: '[Rebecca's] past has been one tragedy afteranother.She was the victimof rape,crime, and betrayal.. . [her experience] seems almost too unreal to happen to just one person'.32 Jessica also struggled with the realization that Rebecca'slife storyrefusedto fall comfortably within culturalstories of age. Rebeccadid not see her life as 'over',rathershe saw her life and her writing as forces which would change the future.When asked why she wanted to take part in the oral historyproject,Rebeccawrote: 'I want to put my story of crime in the paper.I want to write about crime in Detroit so the politicianswill get up and do somethingfor this Rebecca's self representations contracity.'33 dicted the culturalstory that a life's hard work is rewarded with success, and positioned Rebecca within a life where she was not ready to step aside or retire.Jessica's impulseto repre-

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sent Rebecca in terms of prevailing cultural stories is not exclusive either to Jessica or to young adulthood. In her work on reminiscence and writing Ray describeshow 'older feminists have exposed the ageist and limiting assumptions' attached to the romanticizingof elders' pasts such that they are objectifiedand turned into 'museumpieces'.34 If Rebecca's vitality made it difficult for Jessicato sum up Rebecca'slife stories in terms of loss and tragedy,neither did Rebecca's life translateeasily into a storyof wisdom attained. Rebecca's wisdom was not received and her injusticesremainedunvindicated.In Rebecca's life, Jessicawas confrontedwith a story which seemed sure to move her outside young adulthood's impulse to create coherence. What in fact happened,was that Jessica'swriting about 'what she learned'was not entirelyresolved,yet it persistedin attemptingto fit Rebecca'sstory into a narrative of growthand accomplishment. Rather than abandon these concepts, Jessica seems to have resolved problems with fit by modifying the meritocracy's definitions of 'success'. In the conclusion to her analysis of her work with Rebecca, Jessicawrites: I sit here with a mixed feeling, confused on what I should do to help her. One thing for sure, Rebeccadeserveshappiness.At times I wish Rebecca'slife was different,but then I think to myself who am I to be sympathetic, who says she needs any sympathyat all. Her life has made her the charactershe is today. . . . One important lesson I have learned from Rebecca is that although people live through tough times, it is their hopes and determinationthat bringout the best in people.35 What is interesting about Jessica'ssolution is that her changes in the dominant cultural story's criteria for success redefined material success in terms of the creation of character. This move allows Rebecca to be seen as successful, despite her lack of materialreward, and thereforeto remaininside the culturalstory where a well-lived life receives its just reward in old age. This move also constructsRebecca's life as about relationshipand character,rather than as about the intellectual,social or material accomplishmentswhich are the more conventional bases for success within meritocracy stories. While Jessica'sinterpretationof Rebecca's life as the creationof 'the charactershe is today' is not quite in keeping with Rebecca's own conception of her life as an agent for change and social justice, Jessica'sinterpretationis in keeping with the life-stage work and interests
54 ORAL HISTORY Autumn2005

of late adolescence. Life-course development research designates young adulthood as an importantperiodfor the development,elaboration and consolidationof importantfeaturesof identitythroughreminiscenceand other narration.36 What is more, researchinto the uses of reminiscencesuggeststhatwhile youngeradults and elders use reflectivenarrativeswith different frequencies for a variety of different purposes, one function that is more important in young adulthood than in late life is the creation and exploration of identity.37So it seems, at least on the surface, that Jessica's of Rebecca'slife story grows out interpretation of life-tasks specific to Jessica'sdevelopmental stage, ratherthan to Rebecca's. This same researchreportsthat older adults use reminiscencemore frequentlyto teach and inform than do younger adults, and finds that lifework connected to teaching and guiding futuregenerationsunfolds duringmid and late life.38 Takentogether,Jessica's writingand lifespan findings about functions for reminiscence suggest that oral historians in different life stages may tend to perceivesubjects'self-representationsin termsof the functionsattachedto their own current life stage, rather than those of the speaker.Morespecifically, it suggeststhat without reflectiveawarenessof how their own life-stage and generationalidentity may shape their perceptions and representations, interviewers may tend to organize and understand experiences in terms of narratives and issues connected to their own life stage. This is not in itself either a distortion or a bar to writing the 'truth' since interactions between researchers and subjects and the resulting differences in

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perspective have always been integral to the oral history document. At the same time, as discussed in the concluding section, increased awareness of age-related assumptions and orientations can enrich the practice of oral historyin myriadways.
QUESTIONS FOR FURTHER STUDY

In some sense, these findings are neither revelatory nor even particularly original. Oral history is an ongoing illustration of the agerelatedtendencies of subjects and researchers: how membershipin a generationalcohort can structurerelationshipsto particulardominant discourses; how assumptions about age can drive both the focus and content of interviews; and how both oral historiansand their subjects interpretand enact age-relatedidentities peculiar to their own particularlife stage. What is new in this discussion is an attempt to theorize and applythe growingbody of interdisciplinary researchin life-coursedevelopmentto work in oral history. Such a move offers if not a new interpretive perspective, at least a particular how embedded and ground for re-interpreting unacknowledgednarrativesof age and generation, patterns for talk, and age-related social customs operatewithin our work. Forexample,with respect to Brendaand Dr Ware's failure to talk about issues related to 's gender,lifespanresearchsuggeststhat Brenda reluctance to open discussion arose from a combinationof her 'respect for elders' and the assumptionthat identifyingherselfas holdinga conflicting position would be perceived as Questionsof interestto oralhistodisrespectful. rians arisingfrom this situation might include:

how do such intergenerational interactions influence and revise not only the materialthat is collected during the interview, but also the interpretationof materialby readersand other researchers?How can reflectionupon our own age-relatedand generationalidentities compliin interviews, cate and enrichboth participation and readingsof work within our discipline?Or, with respect to the complexities of interpretation Jessicaconfronted in Rebecca's life: how might we characterize and account for interpretive dynamics which arise when late-life tendencies toward the individuationof experience are put in conversation with youth's tendency to perpetuatestereotypes?And how do such intergenerational interactions of the contributeto the revisionor perpetuation cultural stories through which they are perceived and articulated? To put it another way, in Jessica and Rebecca's partnership a disjunction arose between what the subject hoped to say and what the student oral historian was able to understand. How do such differencesin perceptionconfound or sharpen the practice of oral history? Is this disjunction typical or inevitable in talking across generations? And if miscommunicationis inevitable, how does such unavoidablemisunderstanding affect the form and content of the cultural stories younger generations 'inherit' from elders? The object of such questions is not to establish the 'truth'about what a subjectreallysaid, or to construct the 'right' interpretationof an interview; rather it is to develop theory and method for gathering oral history which is a rich account of the changing patterns through

In addition to documenting changes in the technology associated with photography, these two portraits illustrate generational differences in cultural stories about family. One photo from Detroit, Michigan in the 1920s shows a family of six with parents standing and children in front (photograph by permission Emilia Grombala). The other photo from Michigan in 2003 shows the children of the author and dogs, (photograph by Melanie Cobb)

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which individualscreate meanings at different pointsin the lifespanand acrossgenerations.By becoming increasingly aware of tacit generational identities and assumptions, embedded age-relatedmeaningsand the resultinggaps in communicationboth within the interviewitself NOTES
1 ShernaBergerGluck, 'From First Generation to Fourth and Beyond', TheOral Oral Historians Review,vol 26, no 2, 1999, p 1. See History The also David Dunaway,'Introduction: in David of Oral History1, Interdisciplinary Dunawayand Willa Baum(eds), Oral History: An Interdisciplinary WalnutCreek: Anthology, AltaMira Press, 1996, pp 7-9; and Ronald J. in the United forOral History Grele, 'Directions States,'in Dunawayand Baum, 1996, pp 6284. 'WorkIdeologyand 2. Luisa Passerini, Perks ConsensusUnderItalian Fascism',in Robert and Alistair Thomson(eds), TheOral History Reader,London: Routledge,1998, p 55. "What Makes Oral 3. AlessandroPortelli, in Perks and Thomson,1998, Different1, History p67. 4. Exploring raced, classed and gendered was integral to second dimensionsof subjectivity in investment generationoral historians' alike. For and interviewer empoweringnarrator examples, see Nancy A Naples, (ed), Politics: Activism and Feminist Community Organizingacross Race, Class, and Gender, New York: Routledge,1988. Forongoing of subjectivity see Luisa theorization Passerini, a Subjectin the Timeof the Deathof "Becoming the Subject,' http://www.women.it/4thfemcom/lunapark/ 4 November 2004. passerini.htm, as a Social S.Joanna Bornat,'OralHistory and Older People,' in Movement:Reminiscence Perks and Thomson,1998, pp 189-205; Eliot Wigginton, 'Reachingacross the Generations: in Perks and Thomson, The Foxfire Experience,' 1998, pp 206-21 3. and the LifeCycle, New 6* Erik Eribon, Identity York: Norton, 1980; Janet Helms(ed), Black and White RacialIdentity: Research,and Theory, Practice, Westport,CT:Greenwood, 1990; Le XuanHy and Jane Loevinger, MeasuringEgo Second Edition, Manwah, NJ: Development, Lawrence Earlbaum,1996; LawrenceKohlberg, of Moral TheMeaning and Measurement AAA: ClarkUniversity Worcester, Development, Press, 198 1; Giesela Labouvie-Vief, Psycheand Ero:Mind, Gender and the LifeCourse, Press, 1994; Cambridge:CambridgeUniversity

and within the writing,conversation,transcription and interpretation which surround the creation of oral history,researcherscan create more powerful and more complex representations of the lives within the materials they collect.

of Intellectual WilliamG Perry, and Jr,Forms A Ethical Developmentin the College Years: and Winston, Scheme, New York: Holt, Rinehart TheWisdom of the 1968, George Valliant, HarvardUniversity Press, Ego, Cambridge,AAA: 1993. 7. Nancy J Evans,Deanna S Forney, and FlorenceGuido-DiBrito, StudentDevelopmentin Researchand Practice,San College: Theory, Francisco: Josse^Bass, 1998, p 10. S.Jeffrey Dean Webster and BarbaraK Haight Advances in Reminiscence Work: (eds), Critical FromTheoryto Applications,New York: 2002, p xv. Springer, and Oral Joanna Bornat'Reminiscence in Websterand Haight, 2002, p 33. History,' 10. Susan Bluck,'Autobiographical Memory: in EverydayLife,' ItsFunction Exploring Memory, vol 11, no 2, 2003, pi 13. 11. Katherine Nelson, 'Selfand Social Function: Individual Autobiographical Memory and CollectiveNarrative', Memory,vol 11, no 2, 2003, p 125. 1 a. Nelson, 2003, p 133. 1 3. Luisa 'SharableNarratives? Passerini, Life Storiesand Reinterpreting the Intersubjectivity, Past',notes fora talkpresentedat the Advanced Summer Oral History Institute, Berkeley,11-16 August,2003, http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/ROHO/education /docs/ 4 November 2004. sharablenarratives.doc, 1 4. Among othertexts,studentsread Elaine Moon's collectionof oral histories Latzman by Detroit residents,UntoldTales,UnsungHeroes: An Oral History of Detroit's African American 1918-1967, Detroit: Community, Wayne State Press, 1994; and the National University forthe Humanities' is Endowment My History America'sHistory:15 ThingsYouCan Do to Save America'sStories,Washington,DC: The forthe Humanities,1999. National Endowment and personal Students also read oral histories recollections on the My Historyis America's website: www.myhistory.org. History 1 5. All names forstudents and subjectsare pseudonyms. 1 6. Unpublished Reflective Essayby Brenda, 1999. with DrAlex Ware, Fall 1 7. Conversations

1999, Spring2000. 1 8. Unpublished Reflective Essayby Brenda, 1999. 1 9. Unpublished Reflective Essayby Brenda, 1999 20. Unpublished Reflective Essayby Brenda, 1999 M Staudinger 21 Ursula and Monish on Self, Pasupathi,'Life-span Perspectives in FergusI M and Social Cognition,1 Personality, Craikand Timothy Salthouse(eds), The Handbookof Aging and Cognition,Second Edition, Manwah, NJ: LawrenceErlbaum Associates, 2000, pp 633-689. 22. Staudinger and Pasupathi,2000, p 647. 23. Ruth Ray,Beyond Nostalgia: Aging and VA:University Charlottesville, Life-Story Writing, of Virginia Press,2000, Chapter3, pp 71-105. 24. Ray,2000, pi 04. 25. Unpublished Reflective EssaybyJessica, 1999. LRubenstein, 26. Robert 'Reminiscence, Personal Meaning, Themes,and the "Object of Older People', in Webster and Relations" Haight, 2002, p 154. 27. Christopher Herzog and David F.Hultsch, in Adulthood and Old Age', in 'Metacognition Craikand Salthouse,2000, pp 4 17-467. 28. Ray,2000, p 35. 29. Unpublished Reflective Essay,Ellen, and Pasupathi,2000, p 65 1. 30. Staudinger 31. Ray,2000, pp 71-105. 32. Unpublished Reflective Jessica, Essay, 1999. 33. Informal writingto reflecton participation in the course, Rebecca, 1999. 34. Ray,2000, p 36. 35. Unpublished Reflective Jessica, Essay, 1999. 36. Dan P McAdams, 'Identity and Life Story1, in RobynFivush and CatherineA. Haden (eds), Autobiographical Memoryand the Construction of a NarrativeSelf: Developmental and Cultural Manwah, NJ: LawrenceErlbaum Perspectives, Associates, 2003, pp 188-194. 37. JeffreyDean Webster, 'Reminiscence in Adulthood: Functions Age, Race, and Family DynamicsCorrelates',in Webster and Haight, 2002, pi 49. 38. Webster, 2002, pi 50.

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