Experts answer to oral history questions

100 Questions / 40

What is the boundary between memoir and oral history?

Machine Translated by Mandana Karimi

2026-7-27

We asked several researchers and activists in the field of oral history to express their views on oral history questions. The names of each participant are listed at the beginning of their answers, and the text of all the answers will be published on this portal by the end of the week. The goal of this project is to open new doors to an issue and promote scientific discussions in the field of oral history.

In this project, a question is asked every Saturday, and we ask experts to present their views in the form of a short text (about 100 words) by the end of the week. All the answers will be published together so that the audience can compare and analyze the views.

The content is the opinions of the senders and does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the Oral History website. Although the answers are supposed to be around 100 words, in order to be polite and not to leave the discussion incomplete, in some cases, more than this amount of answers will be accepted.

This time, we asked experts to send their answers by Sunday night so that all the answers will be published on Tuesday.

From the intertwining of these answers, using artificial intelligence, we have arrived at theories about oral history that will be published in the near future.

Question 40:

What is the boundary between memoir and oral history?

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Answer to Question 40:

Hassan Beheshtipour

The boundary between the two is very deep and quite tangible. Memoir is a person's personal expression of their lived experiences on one or more topics in a free manner. However, oral history is the systematic use of documented narratives that are collected and organized in order to produce historical content. Therefore, if the boundary is the difference between the two, it should be said that the boundary between the two is determined more than anything by the methodology, questioning, and narrative of oral history. In addition, it should be noted that the nature of memory relies on an individual or a group who can narrate any topic (historical or non-historical) to us in any way they want. Although oral history can also rely on memories, it systematically verifies these memories and measures them with scientific criteria in order to reach an answer to a historical problem or question; while memoirs merely seek to represent personal experience, not to discover a historical truth.

Gholamreza Azari Khakstar

One of the fundamental challenges for researchers is to recognize the boundary between “memory” and “oral history”; perhaps many interviewees consider their subjective narratives to be the same as oral history. Memory is a personal reflection that distances itself from external reality and, under the influence of intentional and unintentional biases, acquires a story-like color. However, oral history is a research and purposeful system that seeks to discover the “how” and “why” of events. To go beyond the layer of memory and achieve oral history, the researcher must challenge the narrator, with a precise understanding of his or her position, background, and level of consciousness, to recount events beyond personal desires. Memory is limited to what happens in the mind, but oral history scientifically reconstructs events by analytical questioning and comparing narratives with documents and evidence. In fact, the methodical nature of questioning and analysis is the essential boundary that distinguishes memory from history and allows the researcher to provide solid and reliable data from scattered narratives.

Mohammad Mehdi Abdollahzadeh

To produce an oral history work, the interviewer has a role beyond that of a simple questioner; he is an experienced researcher who proceeds step by step with the necessary knowledge and skills in this field. First, by delving into the research literature, he gets to know the narrator and the subject, and based on that, he designs the main research questions and creates sub-questions in a questionnaire for each. In the interview sessions, relying on this framework and on the necessary questions, he challenges the narrator's mind to tell the events in all details and depth. After carefully implementing the conversation, he compiles the text in a scientific manner and clarifies the ambiguities. The result of this process is a text with solid credibility and research support. In contrast, memoir, whether autobiographical or narrated for others, is always centered on the narrator's "I" and, due to its dependence on memory, motivation, and situation, is known as a secondary source with a fluid and changeable validity.

Abolfat’h Mo’men

It is true that the basis of both oral history and memoir is based on memory, but the difference in method and purpose draws a clear boundary between the two. In oral history, the main actor is the historian who, relying on documents and evidence, analyzes the reasons for events and the role of various factors, and with his precise questions, makes the narrator speak as historical testimony. In contrast, memoir is a reflection of the narrator's individual mentality of an event, without necessarily involving research or verification. Oral history is the result of a conversation with a group of people involved in an event and a collective memory that goes through a research and systematic process; while memory is a person-centered, single-subject, and linear narrative. The active role of the questioner, targeted questions, and the transformation of the conversation into historical data are the boundaries that distinguish these two fields from each other and give a dynamic theme to oral history.

Gholamreza Azizi

Several main boundaries can be recognized between memoir and oral history interview. However, in my opinion, the difference that can be referred to as subjectivity is the most important boundary (the difference between monologue and dialogue). In memoir, the narrator is the focal point. The past is selected and narrated from a personal perspective and based on his tastes and interests. However, in an oral history interview, the interviewer takes on the role of a guide (as opposed to drifting off topic) and tries to change this individual perspective in favor of a collective perspective; that is, to guide the interview from what the narrator wants to say to what the community wants to know. In this way, the result of an oral history interview is historical knowledge, while this cannot necessarily be expected from memoirs.

Seyyed Mohammad Sadeq Feyz

Oral history is both memoirs. In memoirs, personal experiences and perceptions are expressed in the first person singular with intratextual analyses. However, in oral history, while observing research principles, other research tools must be used. Steps must be taken to verify and complete the narrator's data and place the memoir at the heart of oral history. It seems that the discussion of separating memory from oral history, especially after all these years and questions of this series, does not require redefining and emphasizing the separation of the two, and addressing such issues may be a repetition of the same old things and boring.

Hamid Qazvini

The boundary between memoir and oral history should be sought in the contexts and how they are formed. Memoir is based on the narrator's recognition and problem solving, and oral history emerges from the heart of the problem solving of society and the questions based on it. Memoir is to introduce, defend, and explain one's past, although it is accompanied by a kind of social, cultural, and political concern. However, oral history is an attempt to explain the past of society from the perspective of the narrator's action or observation, subject to the researcher's questions. For this reason, memoir is a completely personal behavior, and oral history is a social action. This is where memoir and oral history separate. Although in both types of narrative writing, society will benefit from them.

Jafar Golshan

Active and specialized interviews about the lives and activities of the people who created the work, including what they saw, heard, felt, etc., can be considered the border between oral history and memoir. Memoirs can be formed according to the wishes and will of the narrator (the owner of the memory). But certainly, oral history is the result of a request from a specialist and skilled person called the interviewer who asks the narrator (the owner of the memory) to speak by asking precise questions and express what he has seen, heard, touched, and felt based on time and place. To talk about events, incidents, and the conditions of individuals. To pour out what can be called "mental relics". To share knowledge with those interested, especially in contemporary history. In other words, it can be said: memoir is self-initiated, and oral history is not!

Abolfazl Hassanabadi

The boundary between memoir and oral history is one of the main topics raised in the oral history space of the country in the last twenty years. Although both are based on individuals' narratives of the past, they have many methodological differences in terms of purpose, method, validity, collection method, and analysis method that directly affect their output. The emergence of the name oral history in recent years has caused many works that are in the nature of memoirs to also take the name oral history. While they have different structural components. In other words, although oral history is based on the narration of memories, not every memory can be called oral history.

Artificial Intelligence

The boundary between memoir and oral history is in their purpose, method, and application. Memoir is a personal, self-centered, and emotional account of the past, told without systematic questioning to preserve individual experiences. Oral history, on the other hand, is a research, question-oriented, and documented process that reconstructs historical events through purposeful interviews, multiple narrators, document criticism, and comparison of narratives. In other words, memory is the raw material of oral history; but oral history, through analysis, contextualization, and validation, transforms it into a historical source and goes beyond emotional generalization. (deepseek)

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Memoir is the expression of individuals’ personal experiences, feelings, and perceptions of past events and is usually structured in a free and subjective manner. Oral history, on the other hand, is a research method for recording and documenting the past through purposeful interviews, recording, implementing, verifying, and analyzing narratives. In oral history, the interviewer asks precise questions, examines the information in its historical context, and compares it with other sources to increase its credibility. Therefore, any memoir can be part of oral history, but only when accompanied by the scientific method, documentation, and critical evaluation does it become oral history and gain research value. (chatgpt)