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“Seeking Information from the Lips of People”: oral history in the archives of Qatar and the Gulf region

Ahmed, S; (2018) “Seeking Information from the Lips of People”: oral history in the archives of Qatar and the Gulf region. Archival Science , 18 (3) pp. 225-240. 10.1007/s10502-018-9293-8. Green open access

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Abstract

The turn to oral history in Qatar and the Arabian (also known as Persian) Gulf is not a rejection of traditional archival authority as has been the case in other parts of the world. In the Gulf, oral history has been embraced out of a desire to fill the silences of the largely unwritten record attributable to previous low levels of literacy and strong oral traditions in the region. Today, oral history is seen as the best method to capture details about traditional ways of life during the pre-oil era. After discussing archival concerns about the evidentiary nature of oral histories, this paper explores how it has come to be a crucial documentation tool in the Gulf, adapted to the specific nation building and cultural heritage priorities of the region.

Type: Article
Title: “Seeking Information from the Lips of People”: oral history in the archives of Qatar and the Gulf region
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.1007/s10502-018-9293-8
Publisher version: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10502-018-9293-8
Language: English
Additional information: © The Author(s) 2018. Open Access: This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.
Keywords: Oral history, Arabian (Persian) Gulf, Qatar Archives, Heritage
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > VP: International
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > VP: International > UCL - Qatar
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10053127
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