This workshop brings together researchers and practitioners to reflect on and compare methods and analytical frameworks for oral history interviews in the context of mass violence, both past and ongoing. Building on the work conducted by Lab affiliates on Syria under the Assad regime, we will take stock of interview practices and consider the significance of interview narratives for developing a sociology of mass violence. Together, participants will explore points of common ground across diverse research projects, as well as productive differences that shape the Lab’s evolving guidelines for oral history approaches.
Discussions will address the multiple roles of the oral history interview: as a site of knowledge production, as an imagined therapeutic encounter, and as a form of public history after violence. Key questions include: What does it mean to frame interlocutors as experts of their own experiences? What are the ethical and methodological stakes of engaging survivors of violence without promising them repair? How might we protect both those who narrate and those who listen to violent histories? By situating the analysis and interpretation of oral history interviews beyond metadata, the workshop aims to produce practical methodological insights and to advance our shared reflections on the study of violence.