SOUTH EAST ASIAN INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY, INC.

National Highway, Crossing Rubber, Tupi, South Cotabato

GENERAL EDUCATION DEPARTMENT

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LEARNING MODULE
FOR
GE 112: READINGS IN PHILIPPINE HISTORY

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WEEK 16

WEEK 16

GE 112: Readings in Philippine History

SOUTH EAST ASIAN INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY, INC.
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 Doing Local and Oral History

The history subjects and courses usually taught to students in schools are Philippine history,
world history, and history of Asia. The coverage is always expansive and taught in broad
strokes of historical periods, of large spaces, and of prominent personalities. Little is known
about the subdiscipline of local history.

Local History is the study of the history of a particular community or a smaller unit of
geography. Debates, however, continuously persist on the definition of this subdiscipline,
particularly in the subjects of its study. Does local history study local communities? Local
institutions? Local groups? Local heroes? In recent studies, local history tends to cover all
these topics. Local historians study the history of local institutions like churches. They also
study the local economies, local heroes, and local events. Local history, thus, is also a broad
and dynamic field of inquiry that aims to have an in-depth understanding of a certain locale.

The most compelling question, however, is why study and do local history? In the first
chapter, we discussed how history could serve as a repository of collective memory. Such
memory is important in forging of national unity through identification with a common collective
past. Nevertheless, nationalism, like other ideologies, when taken into extreme can produce
the most horrendous of human tragedies. The atrocities of the Second World War that killed six
million Jewish people in Europe were perpetrated by an extreme nationalist rhetoric
propagated by Nazi Germany. Totalitarian states at present, like the North Korea, also use
nationalism in justifying the dictatorial and anti-democratic character of the country. In these
cases of extreme nationalism, history is being used by states in forms of official national history
to rally the people behind them.

Local history can serve as a balancer of these tendencies by showing the peculiarities in
certain locales in a particular nation, region, or continent. Studying local history can provide
new and alternative interpretations on the different aspects of a nation’s history. Local history
also facilitates a historical narrative emanating from the people. Historians call this the history
from below. Ultimately, studying local history shall provide new provisions and perspectives on
the already established national history. What used to be a generalizing narrative of the nation
would start to recognize certain nuances and uniqueness in the experience of people coming
from different localities in the nation. Thus, local history is not just aimed at opposing the
discourse in the national histories but is also a tool to enriching these national narratives.

Doing local history, however, is not an easy task. Despite the seemingly smaller scope of
study, historians are often faced with challenges in locating sources for local and specific
objects of study. For example, it is much easier to study the life of national heroes than that of a
local hero. Sources bound on subjects of national importance but tend to be scarce on local
subjects. Nevertheless, this limitation should encourage historians to innovate and recreate
local historical methodology. One important historical methodology to local history is oral
history.

Oral history is important in the midst of scarcity in written sources, historical documents,
and other material evidences. This method uses oral accounts of historical subjects, witnesses,
members of the communities, and the like. Oral history primarily relies on memory. The subject
or the informant will recount his experiences to the researcher as he remembers it. In other
instances, the informant will relay what he learned from his ancestors or older members of the
community to the historian. This nature and definition of oral history cause positivist historians
or those who subscribe to the belief that history should be primarily based on written
documents to criticize the methods of oral history. Memory is seen as something that is faulty
and inaccurate. At best, positivist historians see oral accounts as mere supplement to the
history written from written documents.

However, one cannot discount the importance of oral history in writing the history of
underprivileged sectors and communities like the urban poor or indigenous peoples. These
groups are usually left out on records. They were undocumented because of their status. In

GE 112: Readings in Philippine History

SOUTH EAST ASIAN INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY, INC.
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 these instances, it is the task of the historian to search for alternative methods that will capture
the experience and collective pasts of these communities. Oral history plays this role.

Local and oral history are important endeavors in the development and enrichment in the
discipline of history. These efforts fill the gaps in the discipline by highlighting alternative areas
of study and methodology toward a more holistic, inclusive, and progressive study of our past.
Oral history is a field of study and a method of gathering, preserving and interpreting the voices
and memories of people, communities, and participants in past events. Oral history is both the
oldest type of historical inquiry, predating the written word, and one of the most modern,
initiated with tape recorders in the 1940s and now using 21st-century digital technologies.

In Doing Oral History, Donald Ritchie explains, “Oral History collects memories and
personal commentaries of historical significance through recorded interviews. An oral history
interview generally consists of a well-prepared interviewer questioning an interviewee and
recording their exchange in audio or video format. Recordings of the interview are transcribed,
summarized, or indexed and then placed in a library or archives. These interviews may be
used for research or excerpted in a publication, radio or video documentary, museum
exhibition, dramatization or other form of public presentation. Recordings, transcripts, catalogs,
photographs and related documentary materials can also be posted on the Internet. Oral
history does not include random taping, such as President Richard Nixon’s surreptitious
recording of his White House conversations, nor does it refer to recorded speeches,
wiretapping, personal diaries on tape, or other sound recordings that lack the dialogue
between interviewer and interviewee.”

The Oral History Association offers several resources for you to learn about all facets of oral
history. OHA also offers a series of publications on community oral history, family oral history,
oral history and the law, and other subjects. Oral history is all about making contact with
people so join us at our annual meeting and please join the Oral History Association.

Oral history projects are at risk of failing if the researcher attempts to uncover the
unvarnished ‘truth’ about past events or issues. The classical Japanese film ‘Rashomon,’ a
study of an event viewed through the eyes of different participants, showed brilliantly how
eye-witness accounts differ from one another according to the personality and the point of view
of the bystander. Even flawed interviews, where memory has partially failed (or when
respondents embellish or distort), can produce valuable data in other forms. Objective reality,
then, is a variable phenomenon. What oral historians should be after, rather, is insight gained
from interpretation and background and the experience of interview and life history subjects.
This insight is a building block which the historian can use, in tandem with other forms of
evidence, to craft analytic interpretation. Oral history is a remarkable tool because it elicits
information from sources that otherwise would remain silent, their testimony irretrievably lost.

Whether or not the subject responds with clear and accurate memory, then, in some ways is
beside the point. It is human to present a subject, especially after a long passage of time, in
ways that selectively leave out certain details or embellish others. People consciously and
unconsciously try to put themselves in the best light. Researchers can attempt to be
non-judgmental, but respondents fear judgment and answer accordingly. Subjects obviously
lying or distorting facts should be identified as such, but even in these cases their interviews
will likely add a good deal to the researcher's final synthesis. Even flawed interviews can yield
useful data, even if peripheral. Trying to figure out the motives for deception also plays a part in
the detective work of the researcher and may shed light on the theme or topics of interest.

GE 112: Readings in Philippine History

SOUTH EAST ASIAN INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY, INC.
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 ACTIVITY #16

Discussion Points and Exercise Questions

Direction: Read and understand this module. Provide what is being asked. Use the Rubric
below as your guide. Write your answer in a long bond paper (Hand written) and attached to the
last page of this module.

TASK:
Identify an eyewitness to certain historical events in your own locality (Martial Law or EDSA
Revolutions). Devise your own questionnaire, interview the eyewitness, and transcribe the
interview

End of Sixteenth Week

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GE 112: Readings in Philippine History

SOUTH EAST ASIAN INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY, INC.
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