The Ethics, Risks and Legalities of Doing Oral History with Refugees or Host Communities

Le résumé fourni par la source

This chapter overviews ethical, legal, political and professional requirements around oral history with refugees or host communities. Appendiced templates coach readers through specific procedures around informed consent, data protection, anonymity, copyright, archiving, future access, freedom of information, libel and defamation, criminality and safeguarding. Readers learn how to handle defamatory or libelous statements, deal with any other illegalities that they might happen across and research the legal requirements of their own jurisdiction. We highlight the adjustments needed to meet the physical, cultural and emotional needs of diverse narrators, including how to respect their hierarchy of needs (e.g. for physical safety and food before oral history); manage their expectations of what oral history can do for them; ensure that the resources they invest, such as their time, energy, trust, memory and emotion return proportional benefits to them, not just to the oral historian; and avoid the serious danger that can ensue if the anonymity of a refugee narrator, in particular, is breached and they are later returned to, or accessible by, a regime they had to flee from. We explore how to avoid triggering secondary trauma among either narrators or interviewers. Readers learn how to respect sensitivities around those left behind in the home regime; the deep tact required around any discussion of beatings, incarcerations, torture or sexual violence as victims of all genders try to rebuild their dignity and self-image; and the difficulties, for instance, of discussing state violence at the hands of regimes that may still be current allies of their host country. This section’s ethical guidance draws on the author’s experience of interviewing refugees, including while they are in refugee camps, and specialist training that she received from government for doing this sort of work. Under the acronym ‘ PIECES ’, it explains six behaviors required when interviewing refugees, namely P olitical awareness, I magination, E mpathy, C ommon sense, E quanimity and S elf-restraint. Closing an important gap in the literature, it helps to ensure that applied oral history can add real value – safely and measurably – for all stakeholders of the refugee crisis into the future.

Ce résumé expose les affirmations des auteurs. BNTIC ne l’interprète pas comme une validation indépendante des résultats.