Editing Oral history (section)

=== In Asia ===

==== Syria ====
Katharina Lange studied the tribal histories of [[Syria]].<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Lange |first1=Katharina |title=Producing (tribal) history: gendered representations of genealogy and warfare in northern Syria |journal=Nomadic Peoples |year=2014 |volume=18 |issue=2 |pages=36–38 |doi=10.3197/np.2014.180204}}</ref> The oral histories in this area could not be transposed into tangible, written form due to their positionalities, which Lange describes as "taking sides". The positionality of oral history could lead to conflict and tension. The tribal histories are typically narrated by men. While histories are also told by women, they are not accepted locally as "real history". Oral histories often detail the lives and feats of ancestors.

[[Genealogy]] is a prominent subject in the area. According to Lange, the oral historians often tell their own personalized genealogies to demonstrate their credibility, both in their social standing and their expertise in the field.

==== Palestine ====
Oral sources have established themselves as a vital, diverse, and adaptable source of information for the study of Palestinian history. Researchers benefited from the material contributions of oral studies to studies examining a wide range of topics, including folktales, [[food]] and [[clothing]], [[linguistics]] and [[toponymy]], [[genealogy]], agricultural activities, and [[Cult|religious cult]]. Furthermore, due to the dearth of extant [[Indigenous peoples|indigenous]] [[documentation]], oral histories continue to play a crucial role in Palestinian academics' continuous efforts to narrate significant moments in Palestine's history. Researchers engaged in a flurry of [[methodological]] [[Debate|discussions]] as Palestinian oral history research reached its zenith in the latter quarter of the 20th century. Some of these researchers published their recommendations in manuals specifically designed to standardize and inform oral history research within the Palestinian context.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Nur |first=Masalha |year=2008 |title=Remembering the Palestinian Nakba: Commemoration, Oral History and Narratives of Memory |url=https://www.euppublishing.com/doi/10.3366/E147494750800019X |journal=Holy Land Studies |language=en |volume=7 |issue=2 |pages=123–156 |doi=10.3366/E147494750800019X |issn=1474-9475}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Marom |first=Roy |date=1 January 2023 |title=The Abu Hameds of Mulabbis: an oral history of a Palestinian village depopulated in the Late Ottoman period |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13530194.2021.1934817 |journal=British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies |language=en |volume=50 |issue=1 |pages=87–106 |doi=10.1080/13530194.2021.1934817 |issn=1353-0194}}</ref>

Notable Palestinian oral history projects include the [[American University of Beirut]]'s Palestinian Oral History Archive ([https://www.aub.edu.lb/ifi/Pages/poha.aspx POHA]),<ref>{{Cite web |title=Narrating Palestine: The Palestinian Oral History Archive Project |url=https://www.palestine-studies.org/en/node/227700 |access-date=12 May 2023 |website=Institute for Palestine Studies |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last1=SLEIMAN |first1=HANA |last2=CHEBARO |first2=KAOUKAB |year=2018 |title=Narrating Palestine: The Palestinian Oral History Archive Project |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/26407673 |journal=Journal of Palestine Studies |volume=47 |issue=2 (186) |pages=63–76 |doi=10.1525/jps.2018.47.2.63 |issn=0377-919X |jstor=26407673}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Shehabeddine |first=Nabila |title=LibGuides: Al-Nakba: 1948 Palestinian Exodus: Oral History |url=https://aub.edu.lb.libguides.com/c.php?g=342715&p=2477020 |access-date=12 May 2023 |website=aub.edu.lb.libguides.com |language=en}}</ref> and the [https://worldhistorycommons.org/palestinian-oral-history-map Palestinian Oral History Map], [[Columbia University]]'s [http://palestine.mei.columbia.edu/oral-history-project Oral History Project] in [[New York City|New York]], [[Duke University]]'s Palestinian Oral History Project,<ref>{{Cite web |title=Palestinian Oral History Project, 2017–2020 – Archives & Manuscripts at Duke University Libraries |url=https://archives.lib.duke.edu/catalog/palestinianoralhistoryproject |access-date=12 May 2023 |website=David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library |language=en}}</ref> the [[Palestinian Rural History Project]] (PRHP), [https://www.palestineremembered.com/OralHistory/Interviews-Listing/Story1151.html Palestine Remembered], and [[Zochrot]].

==== China ====
The rise of oral history is a new trend in historical studies in China that began in the late twentieth century. Some oral historians, stress the collection of eyewitness accounts of the words and deeds of important historical figures and what really happened during those important historical events, which is similar to common practice in the west, while the others focus more on important people and event, asking important figures to describe the decision making and details of important historical events. In December 2004, the Chinese Association of Oral History Studies was established. The establishment of this institution is thought to signal that the field of oral history studies in China has finally moved into a new phase of organized development.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Zuo |first=Yuhe |title=Oral history studies in contemporary China |journal=Journal of Modern Chinese History |volume=9 |issue=2 |pages=259–274 |doi=10.1080/17535654.2015.1103049 |year=2015 |s2cid=147593017}}</ref>

==== Uzbekistan ====
From 2003 to 2004, Professors Marianne Kamp and Russell Zanca researched [[agricultural collectivization]] in [[Uzbekistan]] in part by using oral history methodology to fill in gaps in information missing from the Central State Archive of Uzbekistan.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Madaeva |first1=Shahnoza |year=2008 |title=Spiritual trauma of the Soviet reality in Uzbekistan, 1920s-1930s |journal=Anthropology of the Middle East |volume=3 |issue=1 |pages=44–45 |doi=10.3167/ame.2008.030105}}</ref> The goal of the project was to learn more about life in the 1920s and 1930s to study the impact of the Soviet Union's conquest. 20 interviews each were conducted in the [[Fergana valley]], [[Tashkent]], [[Bukhara]], [[Khorezm]], and [[Kashkadarya]] regions. Their interviews uncovered stories of famine and death that had not been widely known outside of local memory in the region.

==== Southeast Asia ====
While [[oral tradition]] is an integral part of ancient Southeast Asian history, oral history is a relatively recent development. Since the 1960s, oral history has been accorded increasing attention on institutional and individual levels, representing "history from above" and "history from below".<ref>{{cite book |last1=Loh |first1=Kah Seng |last2=Dobbs |first2=Stephen |last3=Koh |first3=Ernest |title=Oral history in Southeast Asia: Memories & Fragments |date=2013 |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan |location=Basingstoke |isbn=978-1-137-31167-2}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Morrison |first1=James |last2=Lim |first2=Patricia |last3=Kwa |first3=Chong Guan |title=Oral history in Southeast Asia: theory and method |date=1998 |publisher=National Archives of Singapore |location=Singapore |isbn=978-9813055773}}</ref>

In Oral History and Public Memories,<ref>{{cite book |last1=Hamilton |first1=Paula |last2=Shopes |first2=Linda |title=Oral history and public memories |date=2008 |publisher=Temple University Press |location=Philadelphia |isbn=978-1-59213-141-9}}</ref> Blackburn writes about oral history as a tool that was used "by political elites and state-run institutions to contribute to the goal of national building" in postcolonial Southeast Asian countries. Blackburn draws most of his examples of oral history as a vehicle for "history from above" from Malaysia and Singapore.

In terms of "history from below", various oral history initiatives are being undertaken in Cambodia in an effort to record lived experiences from the rule of the Khmer Rouge regime while survivors are still living. These initiative take advantage of crowdsourced history to uncover the silences imposed on the oppressed.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Kirk |first1=Mimi |title=Confronting the Cambodian Genocide Through Oral History |url=https://www.citylab.com/life/2016/10/confronting-the-cambodian-genocide-through-oral-history/505646/ |newspaper=Bloomberg.com |date=31 October 2016}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Cambodia: Oral Histories and Biographies |url=http://www.mekong.net/cambodia/oral_hst.htm |website=mekong.net}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=BYU Cambodia Oral History Project – Cambodian Oral Histories |url=http://cambodianoralhistories.byu.edu/ |website=Cambodian Oral Histories}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Oral history project brings Cambodia's hidden history to life {{!}} EIFL|url=http://www.eifl.net/eifl-in-action/oral-history-project-brings-cambodias-hidden-history-life|website=www.eifl.net|language=en}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Testimonies |url=http://cambodianwomensoralhistory.com/ |website=Cambodian Women's Oral History Project: Life Stories of Survival under the Khmer Rouge Regime}}</ref>

==== South Asia ====
Two prominent and ongoing oral history projects out of South Asia stem from time periods of ethnic violence that were decades apart: 1947 and 1984.

[[The 1947 Partition Archive]] was founded in 2010 by Guneeta Singe Bhalla, a physicist in Berkeley, California, who began conducting and recording interviews "to collect and preserve the stories of those who lived through this tumultuous time, to make sure this great human tragedy isn't forgotten". [https://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/2014/08/12/oral-history-project-races-to-record-voices-of-partition-survivors-in-india-and-pakistan/]

The Sikh Diaspora Project<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://thesikhdiaspora.com/ |title=Delayed Justice |website=Delayed Justice |language=en-US |access-date=3 May 2018}}</ref> was founded in 2014 by Brajesh Samarth, senior lecturer in Hindi-Urdu at Emory University in Atlanta, when he was a lecturer at Stanford University in California. The project focuses on interviews with members of the Sikh diaspora in the U.S. and Canada, including the many who migrated after the [[1984 anti-Sikh riots|1984 massacre of Sikhs]] in India.