“First, do no harm”: Tread carefully where oral history, trauma, and current crises intersect

Abstract

The nature of oral history fieldwork changes when it is conducted during the course of an ongoing, long-term crisis like COVID-19. One must ask what the role of the oral history practitioner is, if any, in crisis events. In what follows, I discuss this and strategies for undertaking COVID-19 projects based on my experience as director for the T. Harry Williams Center for Oral History at Louisiana State University Libraries and on models for crisis-centered oral histories. I also discuss what project managers must take into consideration with regard to the sustainability of crisis oral history projects during our current period of increasing change and political unrest.