"I Didn't Do Anything Important": A Pragmatist Analysis of the Oral History Interview |
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| Authors: | Ryan Kathleen M |
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| Institution: | Kathleen M. Ryan (Ph.D. University of Oregon, M.A. University of Southern California, B.A. University of California, Santa Barbara) is an Associate Professor in Journalism and Mass Communication at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. Her work in oral history builds off of her 20-year experience as a broadcast journalist. She would like to thank Scott Pratt at the University of Oregon for his help with early drafts of this essay, as well as the insightful advice of the journal reviewers. A version of this essay was presented at the International Communication Association's 2008 conference in Montreal, Quebec. She extends special thanks to all the women who had kindly shared their life histories in this project |
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| Abstract: | In the course of gathering oral histories from women who servedin the Navy and Coast Guard during World War II, an unusualconversational pattern has emerged. The women almost invariablydiminish the importance of their wartime contributions; a commonrefrain is "I didn’t do anything important." Their individualexperiences, as revealed during the interviews, belie that assertion.In this paper, I will use the women's words to parse what ismeant by this rhetorical move. Do the women really believe theydid not do anything important? If so, why do they find it necessaryto participate in the very public process of oral history, placingtheir names and life stories within the historical record? Consideringboth the content and the context of the women's words from afeminist pragmatist philosophical base will help explain thisseemingly incongruent act. This article demonstrates that thewomen do not really mean to belittle their life experiences(and military service), but instead are using the phrase asa way to acknowledge society's expectations. The oral historyinterview, meanwhile, is used by the women to not only placetheir experience into the historical record but also to affirmthe importance of their wartime work. |
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| Keywords: | memory Navy WAVES oral history pragmatism storytelling |
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