Logan excursion, 2019 OHA Biennial Conference Brisbane- Beaconsfield excursion, 2022 OHA Biennial Conference, Launceston
- Fijian farewell, 2019 OHA Biennial Conference, Brisbane
Oral History Australia
(OHA) is a volunteer-run, not-for-profit organisation committed to promoting the ethical practice of oral history in Australia and overseas. We recruit members through State associations that provide support and events.OHA has a passion for recorded life stories, especially from people and groups who are under-represented in the historical record, and for the difference oral history can make to understanding and changing our world.
We also produce an annual journal and biennial conference. Find out more.
OHA Biennial Conference
Next conference: 2026
Location: Adelaide, South Australia
Watch this space – more details to come.
Latest news
Award showcase now online
A video showcase of projects shortlisted for the 2024 Victorian Oral History Award is now available on the Oral History Victoria…
OHT annual Launceston seminar
Registrations are now open for the Oral History Tasmania (OHT) seminar to be held in Launceston on Saturday 13 September.
Precarious oral history collections
Calling all holders of oral history collections in Victoria. Are you confident that your collection will be safe in 10, 20…
And the winner is …
Victoria’s top oral history award goes to Alexandra Pierce for her podcast series ‘Women, Conscription, War’. Oral History Victoria warmly congratulates…
Upcoming events
August 2025
22augAll DayNew date! Graduate Oral History IntensiveOHV 4-day programTRAINING
Event Details
Four-day online course, 22-23 August and 5-6 September 2025, offered by Oral History Victoria.Taught by Carla Pascoe Leahy, Sarah Rood and Alistair Thomson. For trainer profiles, see the booking site
Event Details
Four-day online course, 22-23 August and 5-6 September 2025, offered by Oral History Victoria.
Taught by Carla Pascoe Leahy, Sarah Rood and Alistair Thomson. For trainer profiles, see the booking site here.
Are you a PhD, Masters or Honours student, or a post-doc, about to start a research project using oral history – and need training to get you on the right track? Perhaps you’ve already started a graduate oral history project and want advice and support? You may be a historian, or you work in another social science or humanities discipline that uses life story interviews. This four-day, online training course could be just what you need.
In August 2025, three of Australia’s leading oral historians, in partnership with Oral History Victoria, are teaching this popular oral history intensive course aimed at university research students. We will teach you how to plan an oral history project and apply for ethics approval. You’ll learn how to create excellent interviews and document the recordings for use in research. We’ll explore approaches to analysing interviews and interpreting memories. And we’ll consider how to write a thesis using oral history and to create other types of oral history productions.
You will be active participants in the teaching and learning: reading a selection of key texts, bringing examples and issues from you own research, workshopping issues with the group, conducting practice interviews, discussing interview extracts from each participant, and developing a peer support group of graduate oral history researchers from around Australia, New Zealand and Southeast Asia.
Each day school will be taught online via Zoom, from 9.30am-4pm Australian Eastern Standard time. The course will be limited to 18 participants.
Feedback from participants in this course in 2024:
“Many thanks for a terrific 4 days from the three of you from OHV … so valuable in redirecting and redrafting my research project. Initially I had doubts about the full value of a
4 day zoom meet with 14 or 17 post grads, but it exceeded all expectations.”
“It was terrific to have access to such skilled teachers/facilitators and to come together with other graduate students and to receive such a vast array of helpful resources.”
“I was very happy with the course – expert presenters who were very respectful of/responsive to the participants, great management with everything running on time, different formats to maintain interest, relevant/engaging activities especially listening to everyone’s interview extracts.”
“Al, Carla and Sarah, you made such a warm and welcoming environment! You were all engaging, and passionate and held space for everyone’s opinions and thoughts. Thank you!”
Course outline
Day 1 Friday 22 August – Planning Your Oral History Project & Seeking Ethics Approval
Day 2 Saturday 23 August – Creating & Documenting Oral History Interviews
(fortnight break while participants conduct practice interviews)
Day 3 Friday 5 September – Interpreting Oral Histories
Day 4 Saturday6 September – Making (Oral) Histories in Writing and other Media
Course fees:
$500 for Oral History Victoria and Oral History Australia members
$750 non-members
Closing date for registration – Friday 8 August.
We anticipate participants will draw on funds from their own or departmental graduate research budgets. For students without access to research funds, bursaries might be available from state and territory oral history associations.
OHV is offering up to four bursaries to assist with the cost of registering for this training for students unable to source support from their academic institution. For further details of the terms and conditions and the application form, please see the Graduate Training Programme Student Bursary Policy and Selection Criteria. Bursary Applications must be submitted by midnight on the 1st August, 2025.
Download the form here.
Registration via https://events.humanitix.com/ohv-training-graduate-oral-history-intensive
Contact: for further information and to discuss the course, please contact: Alistair.Thomson@monash.edu
Virtual Event Details
Join the live stream
Time
22 August 2025 All Day(GMT+10:00)
Organizer
September 2025
16sepAll Day19IOHA Conference 2025Re-Thinking Oral History
Event Details
The 23rd International Oral History Association (IOHA) Conference is scheduled for Kraków, Poland from 16-19 September 2025.The theme of the conference is Re-Thinking Oral History.Biennial conferences of the International Oral
Event Details
The 23rd International Oral History Association (IOHA) Conference is scheduled for Kraków, Poland from 16-19 September 2025.
The theme of the conference is Re-Thinking Oral History.
Biennial conferences of the International Oral History Association (IOHA) allow for reviewing the global conditions and problems of oral history, regardless of the actual conference theme. This time, however, the organizers of the 23rd IOHA Conference call on oral historians worldwide to consciously rethink the idea and practice of their discipline.
Oral history today faces both old and new challenges with long-lasting and unpredictable consequences: the crisis of liberal democracy, growing tensions in international politics, climate change with its devastating outcomes on human life, increasing inequalities, wars, and mass migrations. All of the foregoing not only affect the conditions in which oral history is made, but also compels us to rethink its very aim. For Central and Eastern Europe, the full-scale Russian aggression in Ukraine beginning in February 2022 and its consequences are an especially painful reminder of that. Though oral history was, and still is a part of history, it has always been conscious of the responsibility (oral) history has for the current society. Aware of that mission, we encourage the global oral history community to return to the core questions of our practice: what kind of histories should we tell and pass on to the current and future generation
Find out more about the conference at: https://ioha2025.conference.pl/.
See the Call for Papers – https://ioha2025.conference.pl/en/call-for-papers. The deadline for proposal submissions was 31 August 2024.
Time
16 September 2025 - 19 September 2025 (All Day)(GMT+02:00)
Location
Kraków
October 2025
15octAll Day18OHA (United States)Exploring Our American Stories
Event Details
The annual meeting of the Oral History Association will be held from 15-18 October 2025 in Atlanta, Georgia, United States.The year 2025 marks 250 years since the Declaration of Independence
Event Details
The annual meeting of the Oral History Association will be held from 15-18 October 2025 in Atlanta, Georgia, United States.
The year 2025 marks 250 years since the Declaration of Independence was signed. For this year’s Annual Meeting, the Oral History Association will convene people around the question: What is America?
Participants will reflect on the ways in which American identity is documented, framed, and perceived by its citizens and the world.
Just as Americans have proven their resilience and capacity for change, oral history, as a field, has been undergoing a paradigm shift towards radical inclusivity. The Annual Meeting serves as a gathering space to amplify practitioners finding new possibilities, generating new approaches, reassessing best practices, and recalling and refurbishing the fundamentally democratic impulse of oral history practice.
Find out more about the conference including the program, workshops, tours and registration:
Time
15 October 2025 - 18 October 2025 (All Day)(GMT-04:00)
Location
Crowne Plaza
Organizer
Event Details
Have you always wanted to learn how to create an oral history interview? Or do you have an interest in recording the memories of elders in your family or community?
Event Details
Have you always wanted to learn how to create an oral history interview? Or do you have an interest in recording the memories of elders in your family or community? Maybe you’re wondering whether or not to record remotely, or you’re thinking about conducting face-to-face interviews.
This popular Oral History Victoria two-day online training workshop is for anyone who would like to learn how to prepare, conduct, record and document an oral history interview. Facilitated by two of Australia’s most experienced oral history trainers, and using Zoom technology, you will learn and practice essential interview techniques and discuss important ethical issues.
After the first Saturday sessions, you will conduct your own oral history interview (remote recording or face-to-face), which will be a learning resource in the second Saturday sessions. The workshop will be limited to 16 participants to enable lively discussion and practical work in an online format. Participants will need a computer with wifi connection – the Zoom link will be provided, along with Zoom instructions.
Feedback from past participants on this course
‘The skills I learnt and the discussions that took place were invaluable’
‘I liked it that our activities really tested our comfort zones. It was just terrific.’
‘Al and Sarah are wonderful educators and facilitators!
‘A wonderful learning experience. I’ve definitely fallen in love with oral history too!’
‘I loved the course – learned so much on so many different levels, far more than I would have expected in 8 hours. Well done on awesome Zoom teaching.’
‘Thanks so much for providing us with such a great course. I have already promoted future courses to my friends.’
Tickets
Book via Humanitix here: https://events.humanitix.com/oral-history-interviewing-for-beginners
*Please note, tickets are made available to OHV members first, before being made more widely available from the 2nd of September 2025*
Trainer profiles
Sarah Rood is a professional consulting historian who has been working in the field for the past 20 years. She has seen the uses and applications of oral history change drastically. Motivated by a desire to help communicate the past and to help connect individuals and communities with history and identity Sarah has recorded countless oral history interviews. Firmly believing that everyone has a story to tell, Sarah aims to work with people to record their stories in a way that both documents their experiences and ensures that (with permission) it can be accessed by others in the future. Exploring the relationship between new technologies and oral histories has become a particular area of interest for Sarah in recent years. Similarly, the interplay between the tangible and the intangible and how this plays out in oral history is a constant source of intrigue for Sarah.
Alistair Thomson, national award-winning teacher and now Emeritus Professor of History at Monash University, taught his first oral history workshop in 1985 at the Wangaratta Centre for Continuing Education and has been teaching oral history in both community and academic settings ever since. Al’s oral history books include: Anzac Memories: Living with the Legend (1994), The Oral History Reader (2016), Ten Pound Poms: Australia’s Invisible Migrants (2005), Moving Stories: an intimate history of four women across two countries (2011), Oral History and Photography (2011), Australian Lives: An Intimate History (2017) and Fathering: An Australian History (2025). Al is currently co-editing The Bloomsbury Oral History Handbook.
Contact: Alistair.Thomson@monash.edu if you’d like to discuss the course.
Training program format
Timing: the workshop takes place over two consecutive Saturdays:
Saturday 18th and 25th October 2025
On each workshop day the session will go from 9.30am – 4 pm with a lunch break from 12 – 1.15 pm.
Time
18 October 2025 9:30 am - 4:00 pm(GMT+11:00)
Future Event Times in this Repeating Event Series
Organizer
Event Details
Have you always wanted to learn how to create an oral history interview? Or do you have an interest in recording the memories of elders in your family or community?
Event Details
Have you always wanted to learn how to create an oral history interview? Or do you have an interest in recording the memories of elders in your family or community? Maybe you’re wondering whether or not to record remotely, or you’re thinking about conducting face-to-face interviews.
This popular Oral History Victoria two-day online training workshop is for anyone who would like to learn how to prepare, conduct, record and document an oral history interview. Facilitated by two of Australia’s most experienced oral history trainers, and using Zoom technology, you will learn and practice essential interview techniques and discuss important ethical issues.
After the first Saturday sessions, you will conduct your own oral history interview (remote recording or face-to-face), which will be a learning resource in the second Saturday sessions. The workshop will be limited to 16 participants to enable lively discussion and practical work in an online format. Participants will need a computer with wifi connection – the Zoom link will be provided, along with Zoom instructions.
Feedback from past participants on this course
‘The skills I learnt and the discussions that took place were invaluable’
‘I liked it that our activities really tested our comfort zones. It was just terrific.’
‘Al and Sarah are wonderful educators and facilitators!
‘A wonderful learning experience. I’ve definitely fallen in love with oral history too!’
‘I loved the course – learned so much on so many different levels, far more than I would have expected in 8 hours. Well done on awesome Zoom teaching.’
‘Thanks so much for providing us with such a great course. I have already promoted future courses to my friends.’
Tickets
Book via Humanitix here: https://events.humanitix.com/oral-history-interviewing-for-beginners
*Please note, tickets are made available to OHV members first, before being made more widely available from the 2nd of September 2025*
Trainer profiles
Sarah Rood is a professional consulting historian who has been working in the field for the past 20 years. She has seen the uses and applications of oral history change drastically. Motivated by a desire to help communicate the past and to help connect individuals and communities with history and identity Sarah has recorded countless oral history interviews. Firmly believing that everyone has a story to tell, Sarah aims to work with people to record their stories in a way that both documents their experiences and ensures that (with permission) it can be accessed by others in the future. Exploring the relationship between new technologies and oral histories has become a particular area of interest for Sarah in recent years. Similarly, the interplay between the tangible and the intangible and how this plays out in oral history is a constant source of intrigue for Sarah.
Alistair Thomson, national award-winning teacher and now Emeritus Professor of History at Monash University, taught his first oral history workshop in 1985 at the Wangaratta Centre for Continuing Education and has been teaching oral history in both community and academic settings ever since. Al’s oral history books include: Anzac Memories: Living with the Legend (1994), The Oral History Reader (2016), Ten Pound Poms: Australia’s Invisible Migrants (2005), Moving Stories: an intimate history of four women across two countries (2011), Oral History and Photography (2011), Australian Lives: An Intimate History (2017) and Fathering: An Australian History (2025). Al is currently co-editing The Bloomsbury Oral History Handbook.
Contact: Alistair.Thomson@monash.edu if you’d like to discuss the course.
Training program format
Timing: the workshop takes place over two consecutive Saturdays:
Saturday 18th and 25th October 2025
On each workshop day the session will go from 9.30am – 4 pm with a lunch break from 12 – 1.15 pm.
Time
25 October 2025 9:30 am - 4:00 pm(GMT+11:00)