2023 Summer Institute

The world had changed markedly since we last convened in 2019—and oral history had been a critical agent in the change-making process. Practitioners, activists, artists, and researchers in communities around the world were using oral history to not only document social change, but to influence, resist, and further it. Our 2023 Institute, Oral History and Social Change, invited participants to explore how the stories we tell invite social and political change.

During our two-week Institute, we facilitated this exploration with opportunities for our participants to workshop their projects, attend panels, engage with cultural institutions in New York, and to learn from several of Columbia University's groundbreaking oral history projects.

During the first week of the Institute, our primary focus was the Obama Presidency Oral History Project, a collection of 1,100 hours of interviews that assessed relationships between the Obama administration's policymaking and everyday life—namely, how power flowed from the top down and bottom up. This project's interdisciplinary research design and focus on power had led to a diverse collection of voices, including those from the general public who shaped presidential decision-making as the result of the events and circumstances of their lives—a marked shift in the presidential history genre. Participants had the opportunity to interface directly with the researchers, managers, and interviewers who brought this project to life, bringing a valuable 'how to' perspective on executing large-scale projects. Alongside workshops that invited pressing conversations around human rights work, fieldwork dynamics, and the self-advocacy of oral historians, we also explored the roles of individual leaders who worked across institutions, communities, and issues to create a more just world, including through our oral history work with the Obama Scholars Program.

During the second week, our Institute sessions elaborated further on critical insights and topics pertaining to oral history practices and associated ethical frameworks, calling upon innovative projects including the NYC Covid-19 Oral History, Narrative, and Memory Project. Another notable inclusion was a live interview dialogue with an Obama Scholar who shared his experiences around the Disability Rights Oral History project in Nigeria, which aimed to amplify the voices of disability rights advocates in Nigeria, casting light on their achievements, struggles, and the ongoing endeavor toward inclusivity and equality.

• Meet the 2023 cohort

• Meet the 2023 staff and contributors