A Prolegomena to Some Theoretical and Functional Problems of Oral History

By Dr. Morteza Nouraee*

Abstract:
Although, there is lots of information from the close past, some parts of its mechanism in producing and transferring documents have always been noted and criticized. At the same time, audio documents or the same oral history has not been evaluated seriously despite its clear capabilities in transferring useful and almost effective information. On one hand, the theoretical status in the realm of the existential philosophy of this method of transferring information needs to be studied and scrutinized basically and on the other hand, not using this part of narrations in demonstrating the past among the Iranian academics should be taken into consideration.
Thus, it seems that studying the two issues which correlate each other perchance plays an important role in involving oral documents and using oral history in Iran's historic discourse. This article focusing on the two mentioned issues tries to solve the problems and difficulties of oral history from this viewpoint.

Preface:
The human's life always depends on its "social goals". In fact, any generation has its questions of the past, and in this line resorts to necessary mechanisms to find the answers. The expansion of the area of social life and the variety of turning points and the plenty of events and currents in the times near to us has put especially the modern historian vis-à-vis difficult and numerous questions. On the other hand, it seems that the amount of unsaid requests about solving the future enigmas is something that manifests itself in front of today's historian more than any other time. For example, oral history more than anything else is considered as a solution to access the necessary information for reconstruction the past. The life of this method of historiography which is not so long indicates that it has an effectiveness and capability to decode various past events. Meanwhile, the European professional historians paid attention to this method after some three decades later. Also, a kind of global discourse in public participation provided the grounds for addressing the theoretical context of this method more than any other time. These debates main challenges of oral history were emerged in serious and official scenes. Accordingly, many works have been carried out in the field of producing oral history. But there are two issues that seem to be weak. The first one is the need to work on theoretical aspects of oral history, because by bringing up such debates as happened in other countries and this method of historiography found its status among professional historians, this part can find its way at the academic level. Therefore, the second issue which is the clear indifference of academic historian toward it can be removed to some extent. Academics and professional historians still neither see this method of historiography as a basic job in reconstructing the past nor their real value has proved for them. Nevertheless, it can be taken more serious functionally through the involvement of oral history in academic circles and its theoretical challenge. In response to these two necessities, this article first tries to reveal some parts of the main theoretical elements of oral history. Then, it will address parts of criticisms and responses about oral history. On the whole, it is expected that we pave the way for criticism through providing the grounds for main points brought up in this article about oral history and attract the viewpoint of professional historians to its various angles more than any other time.

At first, we should present a summarized definition of this part of historiography so that its effectiveness is tested better. The collection of interviews with informed people will lead to production of the information which is explained and recorded in the form of oral words on the basis of the memoirs of the interviewee. The extraction and registration of these talks (past voices) would result in producing a kind of historical text (1) or in other words transferring different voices into written words is a work which takes place in the first stage of oral historiography. In fact, it is generally called oral history.
Here, according to above interpretation of the job of oral historians, two categories can be addressed and studied: A) the rat of oral history's pureness and validness; B) How the cycle of producing oral documents is.

A) In the first place, it should be said that the rate of the pureness and validness of this category of documents with academic historians has always been a place for suspicion and much debate. Thus, oral historians have sought to respond to parts of these doubts in order to defend their strategic method in writing history. The talks between traditional historians – whose writings are based on written documents – and this group of historians have led this part of historiography to become regular more than any other time.
Many historians believe that the collection of oral documents has always produced historiography. Both relater and narrator (historian: interviewer) are seeking to present a special image of the past on which they agree more or less. Therefore, from this viewpoint, the validness of oral documents will be questioned. In other words, the narrator of the event with much sentiment and interest starts to narrate a story under the influence of a special question. This production is in fact nothing but the mixture of what has been seen with his or her thoughts and its purification during interviewing. More or less, this is almost the entire work the oral history carries out. Thus, oral document cannot have an outer existence and whatever is produced to be oral history from the beginning.
In response, we can say that for this reason we have no pure document, that is the existing writings in its three customary forms (official, half-official and unofficial) is a mixture of a discourse at the time of production and the historian and then the reader should always note that no current or event is not obtained purely and widely. So, according to this logic, oral documents can be considered not only at the level of written documents but also may have also other superiorities due to the flexibility of this part of historical works than other groups.  It is true that the purification of a passive mind in explaining about an event in oral form has been under the influence of the discourse of various times on one hand and ideology, culture, etc on the other hand, but in the silent angles of the subjects and unexplained words, this is the interviewer who can bring those perspectives into the scene of production and history with his or her effective questions. I will address again the issue in another part.
Imagine that a person is asked about an event. This person will retell whatever has seen from a special view. At the same time, other views can be questioned. Here, the witness (interviewer) will represent the estimates close to the fact. This is a minimum work that can be done, because he or she is the only person who has witnessed that event in a special situation and from a special view. He or she can say what the people or even some critics have guessed at that time. We know that such estimates can help a lot to the historian in revealing different and vague aspects of the events in the scene of analysis and generalization. Moreover, such personality can disclose his or her sentiments, others and even rumors regarding that event. Tenses and public interests toward that subject is something that is not probably registered in any source as big and small rumors – which in many cases help disclose the nature of the event – is never registered in any place.
Thus, the proficiency of oral history is in fact about the situations and events, the observers of which are still alive. In other words, the witnesses of these events review and reconstruct their memories about it. Unlike other events, this part of historical events has not still been buried completely and their witnesses not only can mention reports about them, but also can help historian in its more or less full-scale extension.
We in our life always witness the collapse of the currents and trends about which the next generation is uninformed. Therefore, this type of historiography is focused on such situations which have never the chance to turn into words in documents.
It is worth noting and it is natural that a large volume of the past events and currents cannot turn into words. It is because the common and obvious form of these events do not motivate anybody to register them or placing the society in the context of current decrease the people's seeing toward it and do not feel it as should be. For example, no information has been recorded and registered and the situation of the streets' asphalts since the beginning of turning dirt roads inside and then outside the cities. This is because we move, walk and drive on it everyday habitually, but do not pay any attention. Or the container-like atmosphere dominating the life current at various levels of the society is somehow that a professional or an academic pays less attention to it because no such attitude has existed in formal systems and no cost or degree has been considered for it. Thus, turning volume to word takes place only in formal areas. So, the function of oral history is different from the ruling pattern of helping the future historian in relocating such windows and its opening to lost spaces.
In addition to the main feature, enriching oral history will not only register the events, incidents and the feelings around them, but also we can search for and evaluate it better in some following tips:

1- Opening the field for pulling the production of documents out of the state and official loop and breaking its monopolization.
2- Providing good or equal opportunities for historical participation especially for ordinary section of the society like guilds, women and workers is possible when they had been active in their past presence and the historian can reconstruct different angles of their life.(2)
3- Accumulating information and documents about a special subject.
4- Liberating history; as it is believed that the presence of different aspects and players of the past in history scene causes whenever every part of the past is felt necessary, its presence tools are available. So in this case, for making the history multi-voice, there is no other way but providing the tools and instruments that can be referred to it. (3)
B) The status of cycle of producing oral documents; today the admissibility of above elements in other areas of historiography is less disputed as different schools of historiography whether in modernism or post-modernism discourse are seeking to explain more and more about the methods of operating their past on the basis of above mentioned thoughts. Thus, one of the main initial theoretical challenges before oral historians may be about the status of registering and extracting the past voices. So, it should be said that forming and building oral narration in the form of oral history can be studied according to three forms of the relations between its component elements.

1- Language
It means all polemic issues concerning lingual functions such as literature, grammatical rules as well as linguistic games and regular changes (4). In fact, language and the mechanism of whatever is carried out in the presence of historian (interviewer) lead to questions that should be tried to be removed and found the answers. (5) For example, some catchwords and sometimes linguistic meaningful references along with physical idioms (6) provide positions that can be interpreted. And the historian here should settle them. There are sentences which are meaningful at the time of production but when heard or transcribed do not have necessary lightness. Thus, it is said that the status of lingual relation in the past dialogue with the present (interview) should be presented in a way that is more or less free of this part of problems.

2- Social-psychological factors
In fact, there are some points that can be addressed in the kind of relation between historian (interviewer) and interviewee. To what extent has the historian been able to settle the issues related to social-psychological elements and as a result what kind of relation dominates the interview and what concepts do these relations have? These are among the issues which effect on the process (7) of producing oral history automatically and dominate the fate of the interview as permanent variables.
In this line, for instance the interviewee's feeling of trust while interviewing is of great importance. At the same time he or she may have a hostile or friendly position with brokers of the issue during the time after the event and the interview. This can also weaken the story because correcting past memories during the time can also weaken the subject. Creating friendly and sentimental relation by the historian can help a lot in organizing social and psychological issues so that he or she resorts to narrate the past events more or less safe. 
3- The third group of relations lies in a kind of complication which for this reason may be noted and considered less. When a person is interviewed, he or she not speaks with himself or herself and with the interviewer, but also with many members of the society as well as with the history itself in this way. In fact in this way, it is very difficult to define the kind of the dialogue and its nature. In further explaining the above issue, it also should be said that two types of relations in interview can be distinguished and analyzed:

1- The relation between the owner of information (interviewee) and historian (interviewer);
2- The relation between interviewee and his or her historical self-consciousness;
We can refer to some perspectives about the first tip. The atmosphere of interview, questions, education, and negligence concerning the interviewee's covert angles or secrecy are among such perspectives. But paying attention to theses tips cannot help solve the problem. What makes the situation of this kind of historiography complicated is in fact the interviewee's self-consciousness as an observer, In other words, the interviewee looks at the interview subject – taken from memories – as history. Because first he or she revolves at a time or times after the birth of the subject and second knows that times have passed on it. So, the interviewee knows what destiny the fate of the subject and its brokers has had during the time and again knows what will be the possible functions of reminding it in his or her talks with the historian (interviewer)? All of these lead to a complication in achieving a more or less trustworthy analysis. This is actually the umbrella of culture or in a more complicated state, the supremacy of ideology in which even the phrases and idioms find the opportunity to represent production or concealment of the entire or part of the realities, the authenticity of which are doubtful. Thus, we can imagine that to what extent the historical thinking dominating the two sides of the interview can influence the result of the active interview.

On the whole, it is argued that first although the package of interview is open; it is being directed in general. Second, in an interview, the conversation is about the events from which times have passed and in fact it is a mental return that the interviewee reviews them at least in a different situation. Also it should be noted that the interviewee and interviewer picks up the interview's materials and results for registering in history. Thus, oral materials from the very beginning have a special form which can be distinct from the kind of the collection of written documents. (8)
In response, it should be said that despite the relative truth of this trouble, it should be acknowledged that these are the inborn affairs of personal documents meaning the production of oral document follows some instructions in order to be registered. But this does not mean necessarily that it has historical form from the beginning of production, but the interviewer is trying to remove or reduce to minimum the narration's alloys or in other words the blocking of reading in the production stage by thinking and using necessary and effective ways in various phases of interviewing, in a way that since then all those who are seeking to find more or less trustful data for writing the past use the results of the interview. (9)

During the past several years, collecting oral information and news has grown increasingly as an auxiliary method in historical studies. This growth can be called oral history with some remission. This method is increasing day by day both in terms of the number of interviewees and the number of implemented projects. Despite the growth of this type of documents - used extensively by the historians in their works – the professional historians especially in Iran have less criticized and discussed about its theoretical and functional areas. One of the main reasons of this has been whether the oral history materials and the discussions related to it can be followed? This type of historical researches has still no status in academic groups and even its application for students and researchers of contemporary history is less stressed. On the other hand, official and academic degrees do not much value on these types of historical works. However, four useful aspects from one viewpoint can be considered for active interview:

1- Obtaining the information which has not been registered. This type of info can be about the events, but it is more about the useful share of interview concerning individual, organizational relations and some other interoffice connections.
2- This method of historiography can be effective in analyzing the situation of the events and figures. Here, concentration is on unraveling the viewpoints of the interviewee about the people, its events and current. Receiving the viewpoints of interviewees can be useful in clarifying and explaining about the places where otherwise would remain in vague. 
3- Interview can have more proficiency in interpreting the documents through synoptic theoretical provision which explains about assumed intangible motivations. Also interview can fill the existing gaps in the documents and help clarify the ambiguities regarding the realities.
4- The fourth useful element in an active interview is that the historian can find casual awareness and unpredicted views. In other words, in some cases, there are some subjects in the interviews about which the historian has not had reflections basically and find them by accident during the interview.
According to above mentioned functions, here we address a few controversial issues which help recognize and explain about the status of oral history better. Part of the issues is in fact the dispute between classic historians and oral historians. These talks are in the form of the following important subjects, and in line with clarifying the weak and strong points of oral historiography:

One - Nature of oral documents: the interviews leading to oral historiography are usually inquired from this viewpoint that to what extent the extracted materials are seeking to rebuild the realities? As mentioned before, it is obvious that according to oral historians, interviews are not conclusive historical pieces, but the historian or interviewer is more seeking to find the realities and challenges which are about the past events and currents. In other words, historical conclusive affairs or the facts are divided into two parts form one aspects: one in surface and the other in depth. Historical fact in surface means those parts about which the general public is aware and this awareness has not come out of the professional history and on the basis of documentation (10). All know that the Constitutional Movement, world wars and Islamic revolution have happened and no need to be proved historically anymore. These events are chosen themselves i.e. they have implicit importance apart from the historian's special interests or viewpoint. (11) However, the in-depth historical fact is the result of the historians' searches and researches who with the help of various documents are trying to reveal them out of the collection of the elements according to the existing evidence. These historians are trying to turn their historical reasons - resulted from the evidence and documents – into the fact. The result of their effort may not eventually be agreed by all. It means that the entire readers or other historians do not admit to the occurrence of a special event or incident collectively (acceptance of the fact form a historical understanding), but both forms of historical events whether on surface and in depth have always been a subject for discussion among history researchers. At the same time, oral writers look at a wider but stricter realm. They are seeking to retrieve and reconstruct behind-the-scene facts for better understanding of the past; that is those parts of the facts which despite having necessary reality and volume have not already been translated into word due to both complexity and the concealment of a series of cause and effect. In this regard, two important points should be taken into consideration:

A) The final appearance of the interviews in written form can be only as the similar raw materials of any other source. However, the interviewer in these materials – which have biographical forms themselves – can witness the first interpretation through a special person (interviewee) at a certain time i.e. the production time. Nevertheless, this interpretation should be considered as final, but this form can be the beginning of interpretation and analysis, not its end, while at least the origin and the status of the event and its explanation have been registered. 

B) Oral history by itself is history form this viewpoint that it represents self-consciousness. In this case, oral documents create very real and instrumental opportunities with the help of an active interview so that the written documents have not the ability to explain about past events and currents in that way. On the other hand, oral history opens various perspectives for the reader (historian). In this line, some more or less post-modern views – oral documents are among a few evidence that can lead in new results - can be brought up. In other words, for example, the basis of the texts is stressed in historical investigation that the single text has different interpretations. But its mechanism is more in the group of translating discourse and necessities. In the type of oral history, when the witness is present, very rare and marginal possibilities of the events and currents can be questioned. This is the same chance that keeps open the form of pluralistic reading for the future of the text.

Two- Oral documents are not held by the historians everywhere. The readers cannot refer to references everywhere and every time in order to check the work of oral historians. Thus, it can be brought up as a main weak point in the work of oral history texts, in a way that other researchers for citing such kinds of documents or applying them in other comparative studies face with problems. It means that lack of everyone's access to such resources for scientific studies is regarded as a basic weak point concerning oral history and resources.
For removing such problem, the institutes involved in oral history are seeking to give their archive to all according to their special rules. But the type of the interviews are usually conducted with four following conditions, at least the three cases of which can make problems for others' reference to oral resources:

1- The result of the interview is possible for the interviewers and others without permission and freely.
2- Any kind of access to the result of the interview for adoption and quotation needs the official permission of the interviewee except for interviewers.
3- The result of the interview should only be given to interviewers and at the same time any kind of adoption or quotation needs written permission.
4- The researchers need to take official permission to use it. But after the death of interviewee any adoption and quotation is free for all.

Three- As it was mentioned before the issue of the spirits dominating the two sides of the interview is another point for challenging oral historians, because the individuals' spirits are under the influence of many factors in different places and times. Thus, professional historians consider these types of texts as unreliable resources. The main point of such position is that different spiritual factors can have an impact on the status and the cycle of producing the interview's materials.

Moreover, the impact of cultural environment or the discourse dominating the interviewee would question the authenticity of the production conditions. This is while the written resources can necessarily be coeval and sympathetic with the time of production. Although the more we return to the past, the less it is true about written resources, it should be noted that the speed of differentiating discourses and the course of time and the life of every discourse in contemporary period is more and shorter than old times. For example, in the past, Medieval Age was the discourse dominating Europe for a thousand year and with a wide spectrum. But in late twentieth century and the current century, the era of each discourse can amount to one decade for various reasons including the growth of technology and information. Therefore, today, an interviewee who for instance speaks about the events of August 19, 1953 coup, has weathered several various antithetical and even contradictory discourses. So, the dominant cultural atmosphere can show him or her that what type of subject is manifesting in his or her memoirs so that he or she can highlight them more?

Thus, this problem is a main suspicion in the mechanism of producing oral history texts which is brought up as a fundamental flaw in its investigative methods. In response to this problem, oral historians have always paid attention to posing very better questions. In this line, necessary trainings have been carried out for making those who are involved in interviewing familiar with the techniques and mechanism of interview. As a result, a list of important frameworks of basic questions is provided for interviewer. But this does not mean that the interviewer is facing with pre-assumptions which are not preferred or changed, but perhaps, the interviewer while conducting an interview considered many questions as inconclusive. In this case, he or she follows his or her creativity and innovation power. So, in the first place, it can be imagined that such problem is slowly fading. As a result, it may be said that criticizing the interview and its mechanisms cannot be a main factor for violating oral history products.
Four- The issue of getting the interviews common is another point that can be singled from the viewpoint of oral history critics. As its is seen a lot, the subjects are produced hurriedly and in short times and are thinking of the needs of the market or at most the dominating ideologies rather than seeking to reveal the facts from the past.

Even, a great number of this group of interviewers does not have the necessary experience. This can be problematic especially when they face with veteran politicians and cause the historian to unconsciously get out of the way of interview. For preventing such problem, the interviewer should have at least a relative control toward the subject of the discourse and the position of interviewee. However, necessary measures in training the interviewers have been able to remove such tendencies, mistakes and remissions to a lager extent and get their researches closer to reality more and more. But the issue of time of oral research is still discussed as a weak point, because the interviewer's great emphasis on the interview's materials and the speed for sending them to markets will take the chance to present more deep questions. Therefore, oral history theorists believe that the interviews should be conducted in several sessions; then while comparing their content with written documents, we should resort to produce oral history i.e. to analyze recorded data.(12) It should be noted that oral history writing about any subject is something that needs at least to proper time for every serious research.
Five- Research norms for preparation: Expecting to keep the highest norms of research for oral historian is an issue that all the historians are facing. The same methods and principles the professional historians apply for controlling the resources and documentation are also basically used here. The interview is already evaluated as a document and evidence.
In the first step, a list of probable interviewees needs to be provided. As soon as the list is provided, some choices are conducted. The main question like the method of investigation in the first step is that from whom should be started and who should be excluded? This is the same situation of criticizing the resources in the type of normal historiography. This experience should be taken into consideration that was said: "It is almost obvious that the thought of subordinate individuals in every organization has richer basis of fact in themselves that can be found less in more senior authorities. (13) So, it can be imagined that the most useful memories in an active interview are related to second-degree employees and brokers who have not written anything in most of the cases.
In another instance, most of war-investigators are believe that "Are the soldiers very good interviewees?" In another guild, these are the lawyers who can give us a great deal of information. But on the whole there is this consensus that “the most satisfying interviewees, are the retired or working politicians"; because they often face with the difficulty of recognizing the fact and its combination with their own measures. Furthermore, their thinking apparatus has caught within the framework of ideology in a way that most interviews of this section contain a certain consumption date which is suspicious and ambiguous too. Instead, the government employees are among positive groups for interview due to the type of their careers – tended to be neutral. (14) Moreover, the amount of the verity or untruth of oral productions is reviewed through presenting other parallel resources (whether written or oral) so that the degree of their correctness is identified. For this reason, it is recommended that the planning for every interview should have at least two stages; one time during the beginning of the research and the other time, at the end. But it should be acknowledged that the flaws and questions concerning the method cannot be answered easily.
Also asking this question "whether the interviewee or his or her information can represent the type of statistical community?" perhaps is not a right critic or question, because statistical community is not considered in all types of historical information. This is because first, the amount of concurrent and similar productions in the area of documents is a rare phenomenon, and second, the documents whether written or oral do not have a predetermined aspect. It means that historical elements and documentations at the time o formation have not usually shaped for the future and historical productions in order to be able to choose them on the basis of statistical mechanisms. The historians usually face the shortage of resources about any subject. Thus, any track from the past can be considered and used by them. However, we can imagine that the written documents cannot have a more significant supremacy than oral documents because the kind of the resources' importance and usefulness is heavily relying on the information the researcher is searching for or on the questions he or she is looking for their answers.

In this regard, oral historians are of the view that even oral documents are higher than written ones. Although written subjects can speak well and explain about the event, if the researcher wants to present a question about a subject for more information, written documents repeat a subject for ever. So, oral historian can inquire his or her source wherever he or she wants to find more information.

At the same time, oral writers acknowledge that their work has been questioned whenever less effort has been carried with regard to critical thought and finding answers to some basic questions. What is the interview or how should it be? How should it be analyzed?  And for what purposes should it be used to be safe against mistake and error? Such kind of problems in the form of the mentioned questions has difficult way ahead to find the answers. As a result, oral history – as we witness it every day – has turned into a tool for endless political disputes. 
In Iran, oral history owes its life more to interviewing with the old and new great politicians. Therefore, the perspective of historiography has a destiny similar to the emergence of new historiography in the early twentieth century in duality with nationalism and modernity of Pahlavi era. Thus, most oral history products have all remained in the area of politics and ideology and other functions of this method of historiography in other fields have not been grown yet as it must be.
Six- Active historiography (15): Oral history which is the direct result of the participation of the historian and interviewer is called by the historians of this technique as "active historiography", because oral documents are produced in the very early production with the involvement and active role of historian. In fact, oral history is a collection of innovations and inventions which contains pre-constructions, choices and historical interpretation when it is configured and shaped. Unlike most written articles, reports and other archived documents, they are produced after the event of the emergence of fact in an interaction between the historian and live witnesses. So they can be unique and exceptional documents.
In fact, here the historian (interviewer), witness (interviewee) and the text in a trilateral showdown are talking to untangle the past together. Whatever the result is, it is at least a text that the historian and the witness more or less agree on it. At the same time, the oral history critics say that the textual poisoning without a critical vision lead astray both sides of interview. Meanwhile, it is stressed that this type of historiography cannot have an ideal result without noticing to stable variables and parallel products, because such text taken from voice or past voices would be involved anyway and can become a wrong source for the future events.
On the other hand, in this line, there is this question that since oral history is aimed at a sort of reminding the past events with the help of historian, how can it be extended (16)? In other words, historical proposition of historical records is not individual and cannot be attributed to the whole or significant part of the community (17). It can be at least what have been seen, or heard, or individual feelings about the past events and currents that the individual himself or herself (interviewee) have been interested in tem somehow. Since the historical explanation of the events and currents is related to most part of a community, what role can an individual observation have in recreating the past? In response to this question, it is argued that it is better that in the first place, the product of interview is publishes at least at the time of his or her life (interviewee) so that it is criticized in the community in case of consensus over its articles and is completed with others' help.

Also the individual observation of the past in its minimum situation has the ability to provoke other centers of information. Thus, professional historian can find evidence even form written sources in publishing his or her products and uses them to correct the work generally. In other words, the work of oral history from this viewpoint is to advance somehow from provoking news cores in the process of supporting and defending to criticizing and contradicting.
Seven- Another special function about oral history which has been noted less, is that this section of historiography is transnational and trans-borders.

The status of this method particularly among the nations whose cultures and traditions are neglected is an effective and useful way for recreating the past. The internal and even external situation of ethnic, religious and linguistic minorities –in the whole community- is usually less reflected in different types of written documents. On the other hand, the immigrants (foreign and domestic) are usually as absent-present members in the host community. These social groups – which themselves are the source of many changes and developments whether inside themselves or in the host community – have usually less share in producing written documents. So, the two groups in a live dialogue with the past can be the narrators of numerous lost worlds which are useful and necessary in completing historical vacuums.
On the whole, the geography of majority or the amount of the automatic production of documents cannot clarify the relation between the past and present of these types of groups. But oral registration of the news has been able to be the best method for their historiography. For instance, what the Oral History Center of Harvard University carried out regarding some Iranian nationals in the United States can be an example of this activity, although those who leave their country have different motivations. But the rate of their success is slight vis-à-vis the narration of their embroilment. What has not been done so far is the plan of oral historiography in the form of Subaltern (18). The success of this school for its inventors, the Indians has been useful in organizing the individuals of the second and third generation living far from home, and writing their history. 
At least two big collections of immigrants are living in Iran in the recent two decades: Afghans and Iraqis. In official documents, we only witness signs of the crimes and social roughness resulted from their presence in Iran. But no scientific-historical investigation has been carried out in registering how they came and were integrated with Iranian society as it should have been. These immigrants are in fact an important part of the history of the Iranian regional relations in the recent two decades which still continue to play a role in shaping future events and currents. Here the bilateral impressionability of the host and guest communities is clear. But before their past is forgotten, this the research plan of oral history which can register those days on the confident scene of history both with necessary pace and enough accuracy.

Conclusion
No doubt, the way for achieving the past facts cannot be specific to the type of normal and written documentations, but today it is even the type of returning to world pre-modern mechanisms that can help understand and depict the past. Thus, confining historiography within the fragile framework of modern world is nothing but a response to rationalizing approaches and attitudes toward past days. This is fact the same that is said it was a response to the social goals since the second half of the nineteenth century. Modern world overshadowed all perspectives of the human's life according to time's need its social institutions. In this line, history was no exception. The history in this line should show its coexistences and logical assistance with other sciences. Although history joined rearmost, its response to the time's system of social goals was in fact an exit from the production of moral literature and an entrance to a kind of objectivism literature in line with finding the roots of the future social currents and elements in the past.  Such literature owed very much to documentation on the basis of repeated references for recreating the past. This form of narrating the past could at least be accountable for social goals during the twentieth century. At the same time, rotation of social goals in the last decades of the twentieth century has led to the emergence and plurality of the means of writing about the past. Now, this is very natural that the past dialogue with present or present with the past is observed in an endless path the result of which is at least the opening of different ways of looking at the past. Such explanation first of all showed that accountability to social goals can not be summarized in one way and one acceptable form. Furthermore, in this line, the history know-how is focused on social goals more and more. Therefore, it was shown that usual ways i.e. what is generally considered as academic-official products more or less neither can respond to all needs nor is the single proposed solution to achieving past realities. What helped the historians in this path was some ways of pre-modern world but in new form and new instruments. Written documents which were a basis for the past news this time could came into the view of historian's work with the help of tape recorders. This entrance was criticized from the very beginning. What was shown in this article was in fact a show of the historians' dialogue the results of which have so far been able to increase the richness of history on the whole. At the same time, it may be said that there is an almost difficult way before oral historians in extending this method. In this line, it seems that a technical attention of professional historians and opening an official form of using oral resources can be effective in paving this way although the silent and declining perspectives of our not-so-old events needs the all-out support of academic circles so that both the universities and this method of historiography can play a role in keeping the past legacy. On the other hand, now the main question before the oral historians is the way of transferring or interfering or using oral information in writing. In other words, the main question in the form of normal idiom can be explained this way that, how and to what extent can oral information be "edited"?

Footnotes:
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P. Thompson, The voice of the past, Oxford: 1988. (1)
Ibid, p. 2-5. (2)
J. Tosh, The Pursuit of history, 2nd (London: Longman, 1991), P. 213-216. (3)
Language game. (4)
R. Perks & A. Thomson, ed., The oral history reader (London: Routledge, 1998), PP. 42-43. (5)
Body language. (6)
Process. (7)
Ibid, PP. 38-40. (8)
D. A. Ritchie Doing oral history (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), chapters 2, 3. (9)
Documentation.  (10)
(11) Hussein Ali Nowrouzi, History Philosophy (Tehran, Tarh-e-now, 1379[2000]), page 34.
K. Howarth, Oral history (London: Routledge, 1999), P. 143. (12)
Ibid, P. 363. (13)
Ibid. (14)
Active historiography. (15)
Generalization. (16)
Apply. (17)
(18)Subaltern.

*PhD Candidate of Iranian History and a member of the history department of Isfahan University
Nour4051@yahoo.com

Translated by: Mohammad Baqer Khoshnevisan