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Students enrolled in a fourth-year history/folklore course learned that history is very relevant to marginalized communities.

The oral history course, taught by historian Dr. Rainer Baehre, brings students and communities together to collect "living history" through story sharing.

According to the course description, the course "examines the narratives of everyday people who tell their life experiences," focusing on the collection and analysis of oral narratives and how they can be used to illuminate the past.

Dr. Baehre said there are several reasons why he has his students employ interview techniques for information collection.

"It brings the community into those stories and the students experience living history, collecting information that may not be available otherwise," he said.

The course makes history relevant, while teaching students how to conduct research, as well ethical research practices, ethnography skills, and how to engagement the public in scholarly research. Dr. Baehre calls it "history from the bottom up." It also requires student to relate their findings with more traditional historical sources. In so doing, they learn to link microhistory with macrohistory.

After the students have interviewed local community members and have discussed and analyzed findings in class, they go back to the community to share their findings with the interviewees through public presentations.

"They share their findings including recorded interviews, transcripts, documents and essays with the community-at-large to acquire further feedback to help validate class and individual findings," said Dr. Baehre.

To date the students have researched:

When the course is offered again next year, students will investigate traditional subsistence and commercial agriculture (i.e., food sustainability). For more information about Hist/Folk 4480 (Oral History), contact Dr. Baehre at rbaehre@grenfell.mun.ca.