Interrogating Thompson’s Community Approach to Oral History with Special Reference to Selected Oral History Programmes in Zimbabwe

Abstract

 Thompson (1998, 27) argued that “there have been telling criticisms of a relationship with informers in which a middle-class professional determines who is to be interviewed and what is to be discussed and then disappears with a tape of somebody’s life which they never hear about again—and if they did, might be indignant at the unintended meanings imposed on their words.” This is one of the criticisms that have been levelled at conventional oral history methodologies, especially those used by national institutions such as National Archives of Zimbabwe. It is Thompson’s argument that with the use of a “community approach” methodology, communities are empowered and then have confidence in writing their history which will be accessible to the public. This article will therefore interrogate Thompson’s concept using case studies of the Mafela Trust, the Tso-ro-tso San Development Trust and the National Archives of Zimbabwe to understand the positives and negatives of the community approach to oral history. The Mafela Trust is a private archival institution which deals with the memory of the Zimbabwe African People’s Union (ZAPU) whilst the Tso-ro-tso San Development Trust deals with the San Community of Zimbabwe. These institutions have used oral history as a tool to collect their oral testimonies; therefore this article will use oral history testimonies, some of which are archived, as its source of data. Document analysis will also be done