Generations and Memory: Continuity and Change

A special issue of Oral History Forum d'histoire orale
Deadlines:

• October 1, 2015 - Abstracts (one to two pages) and CVs
• February 1, 2016 - Complete draft submissions due

In oral history and memory research, the transmission of memories from one generation to another has been understood to be a key mechanism of continuity in families, communities, nations, and diasporas. At the same time, sharp divides between generations and their memories and understandings of the past have been understood to reflect and drive social change. This special issue focuses on how generations act as sites of both continuity and change -- a question that itself invites interrogation of how the concept of generation in variously understood and constructed inside and outside academe.
The scope of our interests is thus wide. We invite empirical, methodological, and theoretical research papers (7000-8000 words) that can be rich in photos or audio/video recordings, as well as reviews of recent exhibitions or films (1500 words), that address:

• Continuities in the oral transmission of memory (and forgetting) across generations, for example, through families' everyday communicative memory practices, or via community-based initiatives to maintain oral traditions
• Divides and changes in the memories of generations, for example, in conjunction with the emergence of new cultural memory media and practices or changes in political configurations
• The interplay of continuity and change, such as in transnational projects in which the memories or memory practices of one generation are recontextualized elsewhere
• How oral history distinctively illuminates and problematizes the concept of generation, for instance, in terms of whether "generations" are best understood as the products of opportunity structures or formative events, or as discursive resources for understanding social continuities and changes

Oral History Forum d'histoire orale  is the open-access journal of the Canadian Oral History Association. It serves as the online meeting place for scholars, community activists, librarians, archivists, and others who use oral history to explore the past.
Throughout the review process, authors can communicate with the editors in their choice of Chinese, Japanese, French, or English.

• Authors may submit their abstracts and CVs in any of these languages
• If your abstract is selected, your draft submission, preferably written in French or English, will be subject to the normal peer review process of the journal.
• All authors will be required to submit the final version of an accepted article in French or English (the journal's official languages). In addition, if an author also wishes to provide the final version in another language, we would be delighted to publish it in that language as well.

We aspire for this special issue to reach as wide an audience as possible, and to serve to introduce readers to diverse academic cultures' approaches to the questions of generation in oral history. We hope that all the final papers will be ready for the issue to be published by mid to late 2016.
Please email queries, abstracts, and CVs to both of the issue's Guest Editors:

• Katherine Bischoping, Department of Sociology, York University, Toronto, Canada (kbischop@yorku.ca)
• Yumi Ishii, Institute for Advanced Studies on Asia, The University of Tokyo (yumi@ioc.u-tokyo.ac.jp)