When hundreds of people displaced by mass violence volunteered to tell their stories to the Montreal Life Stories project, they challenged long-held beliefs about how oral stories should be recorded, collected, and shared.

Using the Montreal Life Stories project as an example of collective storytelling, Oral History at the Crossroads rejects the idea that there must be “critical distance” between researchers and their subjects. Instead, it provides an alternative model to traditional research practice, one where community members “share authority” as equal partners in a project. More than a hundred photographs illustrate the experiences of those who participated in the project and highlight the intersections between oral history, digital media, and performance.

A sustained reflection on collaborative research, Oral History at the Crossroads has methodological and ethical implications for scholars. And, as a contemporary model for curating oral and public history, it pushes the field in new directions.

Steven High is a professor of history at Concordia University in Montreal where he co-founded the Centre for Oral History and Digital Storytelling. He has authored a number of books and articles on structural and mass violence as well as deindustrialization as a political, socio-economic, and cultural process. He is currently the head of the transnational “Deindustrialization and the Politics of Our Time” (DEPOT) research project which brings together researchers, museum professionals, archivists, and trade unionists across Europe and North America.

Steven High's profile page

• Winner, CLIO Prize for Quebec, Canadian Historical Association