Letters

IOHA

The IOHA-Scholarship Fund 2006-2008

During its 2006-2008 term, the IOHA has been very successful in raising money for the  IOHA-Conference Scholarship Fund. The Fund was set up for the Rome Conference in 2004, and achieved further success in 2006 in Sydney.

This time, in 2008, twelve applications (13 persons) from a wide range of countries received support which made their participation possible to IOHA's 15th International Conference in Guadalajara, Mexico. Oral historians from Lebanon, Namibia, Australia, Ucrania, Kenya, Cuba, Guatamala, Colombia, Panama and Argentina have been awarded. The decisions have not been easy, as the IOHA Scholarship Committee had to select from over 50 eligible, excellent applications.  

Aim and Character of the Fund:

This IOHA Scholarship award scheme should be set in the wider context of the Association's aim "to support oral history practitioners from around the globe to come to its biannual International Conference who would, without this support, otherwise not be able to come". The Scholarship Fund is for IOHA-Conference and Masterclass participants only; as a consequence, the Committee's work follows an acceptance, rejection and payment pattern within a two-year cycle. About 8 months before the IOHA Conference the Committee decides on all received applications, working with the raised funds. If, at later stage, money is still (or again) available, the Committee can make a second selection round.

Scholarships are always a small part of the costs, and are only given to (potential) oral historians who show commitment. Applicants must argue how their participation to the Conference benefits oral history work, and show their effort in finding funds elswhere.  

The 2006-2008 Awards

Thanks to efforts from IOHA's President and some Council members, IOHA had received already at an early stage financial support from national organisations in the USA, the UK and Australia. From the successful Sydney Conference its positive Scholarship balance was transfered, and the total fund was finally further topped up by IOHA's own contribution. From the total sum of about US$ 13.000, US$ 12,636.50 has been awarded to 12 applications (13 persons).  

IOHA 2008 SCHOLARSHIP  RECEIVERS were 

Decision process

Only complete applications are considered, which are first checked against their eligibility. The criteria list in the application form, together with the way a financial case is argued, gives the first rough selection. Criteria are: applicants from developing and economically-poorer nations; applicants from geographical areas under-represented in IOHA; independent scholars from developed nations with proven financial need; promising new and younger scholars; those who have never attended any IOHA Conference; those who have not traveled to any international or out-of-country conference in the last three years; those who did not receive a scholarship for the last IOHA meeting.

The important determinant in the application is however, how a case is argued concerning oral history practice. How important is the applicant's work for furthering oral history? This can be in various directions: development of oral history in the region, in that particular subject area; but also professional development of the applicant. Good oral history credentials or outstanding potential are important.

A third aspect in deciding on applications, concerns IOHA's view on its meaning as international association. IOHA intents to be a real global organisation, to connect with oral historians in all regions. IOHA wants to make an effort to bring oral history practitioners from the South together in its Conference and Masterclasses that are held alternately in the South and the North. Therefore, through the Scholarship Fund oral historians in Africa and Asia can be encouraged to come.

IOHA also wants to strike a balance between Spanish and English speakers during its Conferences, not forgetting it has emerged also out of this 'language struggle'. Not an easy task. As the 2008 Conference was held in Mexico, this time the Scholarship award selection shows the Committee's effort to acknowledge also the strong network in the region and its potential to inspire and encourage new and young Spanish speaking oral historians. 

Did the Fund's sources play a role in decision making? The donors, mainly national oral history organisations, never attached any condition to their financial gift. It must be said though that after the Scholarship Committee had decided on the list of awardees, knowledge in the Scholarship Committee about the sources, could tip a balance. For instance knowing that an applicant's oral history work was well appreciated in a certain 'donor country', the award could be US$ 1000 in stead of US$ 900.

Feedback

Whoever can better express the results of Scholarship Fund spending than those who were awarded? After the Guadalajara Conference, all Award Receivers thanked IOHA and its donors and wrote how they and their work are going to profit from their attendance.
Vanessa Hearman,  PhD Candidate and Research Assistant (Indonesia/Southeast Asia)
School of Historical Studies, University of Melbourne Australia/Indonesia, wrote:

"In the past, my work has been presented in the context of Asian Studies audiences, who have not always appreciated the oral history and leftist politics contained in my research .... I began to consider how my research on life histories of the left in Indonesia could be incorporated into a broader research project about life histories of the left in the Global South, not only in the Asian context......The master class by Linda Shopes was particularly commendable. She was a generous and highly capable trainer. It was one of the highlights of the conference for me"

While Manuel E. Vela Castañeda , from Guatamala (Centro de Estudios Sociológicos  El Colegio de México) writes:

"... allowed me to present the central part of my PhD thesis in Social Sciences, that I am about to conclude at El Colegio de México. ...After concluding my PhD in January 2009, the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences in Guatemala will create the Research Program on Memory and History. ..... In January 2009, I will be Professor/Researcher of the Central American Program of Postgraduate Studies in Social Sciences, based in FLACSO Guatemala. This is the only regional program with full time students and professors, so it represents a very important opportunity for the reproduction of knowledge related with the oral history.

The young scholar from Colombia secured a PhD place in Mexico, the Ucrainian participant develops oral history in the region further with contacts made in Mexico. In Namibita IOHA was even promoted on radio by the participant from that country.

Also on behalf of all Award winners, co-Committee Member Marilda Menezes form Brazil,  and  I, Tineke E. Jansen (chair), thank all IOHA donors for their very generous contribution! Hopefully Prague 2010 will also turn out to be successful in attracting money for the IOHA Scholarship Fund, to continue its success.

Tineke E. Jansen
(chair) IOHA Scholarship Committee  2006-2008 | 2008-2010

TURKEY

Obituary

Günhan Danisman

We lost Günhan Danışman, a dear colleague and friend, on January 17th, 2009.  He was the organizer of the 2000 IOHA Istanbul meeting, and had served the IOHA Council between 2002-2006.  Günhan was trained as an architect at METU (Middle East Technical University) in Ankara and finished his doctoral studies at the University of London in 1976 in the field of History of Technology.  He taught History of Technology at Boğaziçi University in Istanbul from 1977 to 1982.  Following the 1980 military coup, he resigned from his academic post and left Turkey to work in the Middle East as an architect. Upon his return to Turkey in the early 1990s, he worked as administrator in different NGOs, while also reuniting himself with the History Department at Boğaziçi University.  Günhan had a genuine interest in archeology.  Through the years, he worked in different excavations, including those in England (Chichester) and Turkey (Ikiztepe, Köşkerbaba, Tarsus).  His last excavation which was in the Eastern Thrace town of Kırklareli still continues.

Oral history came into Günhan Danışman’s agenda, when in the midst of the organization process of the 2000 Istanbul meeting, Arzu Öztürkmen was hospitalised and had to step down from her local organiser position.  As a member of the History Department of Boğaziçi University, Günhan volunteered to take over, a mission which at the time required him to get to know the international community of oral historians, the functioning of the newly founded IOHA, and the hardships of the local hosting activities, academically and otherwise. 

Oral history, charmed Günhan as a new field of research, open to all curious minds like his.  Sociable in his nature, and a natural fieldworker trained in archaeological sites, he engaged easily with the process of interview.  By the end of the 1990s, he found himself involved in the organization of new oral history projects.  He first began to collect narratives of the members of the History Department at Boğaziçi University, a department which he helped to get founded in the early 1980s.  This was a project in memory of his mentor Aptullah Kuran, the founding rector of Boğaziçi University as well as its History Department, which had become one of the most respected history communities of Turkish-Ottoman studies.  His other oral history project developed around the historical Bosphorus neigborhood of Arnavutköy, where had lived since the 1990s.  Arnavutköy has been known as one of the unique multi-ethnic neighborhoods of Istanbul, co-habited by Turks and Greeks.  The neighborhood was also popular as it lately was in danger of being partly destroyed by the construction of the third Bosphorus bridge.  As an architect and historian, Günhan Danışman took the lead to successfully organize a civil movement to oppose the building of the bridge, along with the very great contribution of his wife Özden.  His Arnavutköy oral history project comprised interviews with local residents, but also with artisans and shopkeepers in the neighborhood.  As an historian of technology he gave great importance to documenting the disappearing artisanry of small neighbourhoods, a matter he discussed during his presentation at the IOHA meeting in Rome in 2004.  Günhan Danışman also contributed to the field with a series of oral history publications.  He edited the 2000 meeting proceedings, published Mercedes Vilanova’s The fourth world Baltimore narratives, 1990 (2005) by Boğaziçi University Press, and initiated a publication series on the life-stories of architects in the Istanbul Chamber of Architects.

Günhan Danışman’s legacy to the oral history movement in Turkey has been of great significance.  Significantly, when he found himself organizing the 2000 IOHA meeting in Istanbul, he had almost no information about the dynamics of the field and community of oral history in Turkey and abroad.  Oral history had entered into the agenda of Turkish scholars in the early 1990s, where only a handful of people had access to the international literature.  There were only a handful of oral history projects and very few universities or NGOs interested in this topic.  When Istanbul was proposed as a site for the conference there had also been severe opposition from some of the IOHA members because of Turkey’s meager record on human rights, particularly on the Kurdish and Armenian questions, military coups and women’s oppression.  Unaware of many of these judgments, Günhan soon found himself within a domestic and international crisis, when a panel on the Armenian issue was opposed by the co-sponsoring NGO, the Tarih Vakfı (History Foundation).  At the end, Boğaziçi University History Department decided to host the conference without the support of the Tarih Vakfı, and with the Armenian panel, a matter delicately handled under the leadership of Günhan Danışman and the then IOHA president Mercedes Vilanova.  The Istanbul meeting had a great impact on the way oral history gained visibility in Turkey.  Many young researchers, students and scholars, found the opportunity to observe the breadth of the field in terms of the themes covered, methodological debates and available publications.  Günhan Danışman put all his energy into including more young scholars from around Turkey, encouraging them to join similar oral history meetings.  Many of them are doing today their doctoral studies in areas which once were the basis for opposing the 2000 meeting held in Istanbul: on human rights; Kurdish and Armenian questions; military coups and women’s oppression.  In ten years Günhan had grown to be known as the main supporter of many oral history projects and theses written on themes ranging from ethnic conflicts to vernacular culture.  These on-going oral history projects, meetings and publications show how Günhan’s legacy will continue to have impact in our lives.

Günhan Danışman was a gentleman and an enquiring and studious scholar who chose to teach until the very last week he was hospitalized.  His life and legacy was commemorated on Monday, 19th of January 2009 at Boğaziçi University with a big crowd including his wife, son and daughter, his friends from diverse institutions, and his colleagues and students. 

Arzu Özturkmen
Boğaziçi University

PANAMA

Third Oral History Meetings in Nicaragua: “Rescuing our Peoples’ History.” 16-21 February 2009.

On January 29 through February 2, 2007 Panama was the venue for the first edition of an Oral History gathering in this part of Latin America. Many Central Americans attended, especially from Costa Rica, Honduras and Nicaragua. There were also faculty and students from such diverse degree programs as history, anthropology, archaeology, communication and social sciences. At this point we noted a greater interest in Oral History in Central America, and Nicaragua in particular.

The purpose of Third International Meeting of Oral History was to enable academics from the different disciplines to come together to discuss topics of current interest, and, above all, to analyze the contributions of Oral History to the social sciences and to the construction of the Latin American reality.

We were encouraged to hold this third conference by history developments in humanities and efforts to recover history, especially among the people who have been silenced for centuries by those in  power. The highest goals could be realized as delegates on panel discussions, lectures, oral and video book presentations all participated actively. Thus, education and awareness training advocate social and political identities. "People are the ones who make history."

Under the theme of "University and Society: Commitment to the public universities, creating a more just, democratic society”, we developed oral presentations of videos, filled with clear messages concerning our people’s situation, plus book and journal presentations. This space was used to discuss the problems that our people endure and propose certain actions, such as establishing the Latin American Oral History project within the next two years promoting Latin America in a systematic work to ensure that the Fourth International was successfully carried out in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela in 2011. This was a sample of how Oral History works with greater social sensitivity. Those particular videos were filled of protest and showed how we can write history from the perspective of the people involved.

We would like to thank all the coordinators working in solidarity and with unconditional support. Without them it would not have been possible to hold such an event. Several of them supported the workshops. We owe all of them a great debt. The UNAN-Managua authorities’ commitment was noteworthy as well as the efforts of teachers and administrative workers in ensuring the meeting’s success. Importantly, as a result of the third conference, the organization promoted the Nicaraguan Association of Oral History, which is already successful.

Jilma Romero Arechavala jilmaromero@hotmail.com

Send your letters via e-mail to both co-editors:

Miren Llona (Spanish text)- miren.llona@ehu.es
Juan José Gutiérrez (English text) - juan_gutierrez@csumb.edu