Além das versões: possibilidades da narrativa em entrevistas de história oral

The work with oral history consists of recording interviews which have historical and documental proprieties, with actors/actresses or witnesses of events, conjunctures, movements, institutions and ways of living along the contemporary history. One of its basic foundations is the narrative. An event or a situation lived by the interviewee can not be transmitted to any other person without being narrated. That means that it frames itself (meaning that it does become something) at the very moment of the interview. By telling his/her life experiences, the interviewee transforms what has been lived into language, selecting and organizing facts according to some determined meanings. This work of language in crystallising images (images which refer to, and mean again, life experience) is common in all narratives - and we do know that sometimes it is much more successful than others (just the way some oral history interviews are certainly more successful than others). However, perhaps we have not given yet all the attention needed to this work of language in the oral sources.

Law and narrative: a life history interview with a Brazilian jurist

This article discusses some issues in communicating experience, based on a life history interview with 83-year-old Brazilian jurist Evandro Lins e Silva conducted by the Getúlio Vargas Foundation’s oral history program (Centro de Pesquisa e Documentação de História Contemporânea do Brasil, or CPDOC) between August 1994 and January 1995.1The text focuses especially on two images used by the interviewee, which consolidate both the experiences that have been communicated to him and the experience that he himself endeavors to communicate regarding his activities as an attorney and the status of truth within the field of law.

Institucionalização e expansão da História Oral: dez anos de IOHA

Todo cuidado foi dispensado para respeitar os direitos autorais deste trabalho. Entretanto, caso esta obra aqui depositada seja protegida por direitos autorais externos a esta instituição, contamos com a compreensão do autor e solicitamos que o mesmo faça contato através do Fale Conosco para que possamos tomar as providências cabíveis.

Interviewing the Brazilian military: reflections on a research experience

My purpose is to present some reflections about my experience in interviewing Brazilian military officers. Despite the specificity of the Brazilian case, I trust that these observations may serve as a comparative reference for the study of military institutions in other contexts.

Immigration and memory

The town of Nova Friburgo, in Brazil, was founded in 1820 by swiss immigrants who, as often happens in the majority of migratory flows, crossed the ocean in search of better life conditions. The scope of this paper is to trail the path of a swiss immigrant called Marianne Joset Salusse and then follow on to investigate the mechanisms involved in elaborating family memory and public memory around this woman who would become a symbol of immigration to this town. Thus a series of interviews were held with her descendants, which were fundamental for the understanding of current representations and the main elements which constitute the collective memory around Marianne. Besides oral sources, we had recourse to written documents which allowed a retrieval of relevant information about her life. More than simply adding information, written sources allowed for a more profound analysis of oral accounts, unravelling as well as unveiling selective procedures peculiar to memory construction (Pollak, 1989;1992).

Refletindo sobre a profissão de historiador: entrevista com a Profa. Dra. Marieta de Moraes Ferreira

A Professora Marieta de Moraes Ferreira é Doutora em História pela Universidade Federal Fluminense, tendo realizado estágio doutoral pela École des Hautes Études e pela Universidade de São Paulo. É professora titular de História do Brasil da Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, atual coordenadora nacional do Mestrado Profissional em Ensino de História (Prof História) e Bolsista de Produtividade em Pesquisa do CNPq. Além disso, é coordenadora do programa de livros didáticos da Fundação Getúlio Vargas (FGV) e diretora executiva da Editora FGV. Já ocupou cargos importantes em outras instâncias institucionais relevantes na área de História, como a de editora responsável da Revista Brasileira de História, a de presidente da Associação Brasileira de História Oral, a de presidente da International Oral History Association e a de diretora do CPDOC da Fundação Getúlio Vargas. Sua produção historiográfica é extensa, dinâmica e amplamente reconhecida nacional e internacionalmente. Seus trabalhos versam sobre importantes campos historiográficos, como a História Política, a História do Tempo Presente e o Ensino de História, além de consideráveis reflexões sobre Memória e História Oral. Seus livros, seus textos e seus artigos são, hoje, respeitáveis referências. Destacamos alguns, entre autorais e organizados: História do tempo presente (Ferreira e Almeida, 2014), A História como ofício (Ferreira, 2013), Aprendendo História: Reflexão e ensino (Ferreira e Franco, 2013), Memória e identidade nacional (Ferreira, 2010), João Goulart: entre a memória e a história (Ferreira, 2006) e Usos e abusos da História Oral (Ferreira e Amado, 1996).

A vocação totalizante da história oral e o exemplo da formação do acervo de entrevistas do CPDOC

This paper discusses the oral history vocation to totality taking as example the formation of the CPDOC’s (Centro de Pesquisa e Documentação de História Contemporânea do Brasil da Fundação Getulio Vargas) oral history archive. As “vocation to totality” we consider specially the construction of senses and syntheses of the past and the hermeneutical perspective in which oral history is inserted.

Oral history in Brazil: an assessment

This overview of the development of the oral history field in Brasil analyzes the different approaches used in the area, discusses its major topics of interest, and traces the organizational and historical paths of the country's most important oral history programs.