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Fictionalising Oral History Interviews: Ethnographic Fiction and the Oral History Project

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THE ARTFUL LIFE STORY: THE ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW AS FICTION Ariella Van Luyn Bachelor of Creative Industries (Creative Writing) (Hons Class 1) Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Final Submission Supervisors: Mr Craig Bolland and Dr Kari Gislason Creative Writing and Literary Studies Creative Industries Faculty Queensland University of Technology October 2012 Keywords Arts-based research methods, creative writing, ethnographic fiction, fiction, hybrid novel, narrative, oral history, Oral History Association of Australia, practice-led, semi-structured interview The Artful Life Story: The Oral History Interview as Fiction i Abstract This practice-led PhD project consists of two parts. The first is an exegesis documenting how a fiction writer can enter a dialogue with the oral history project in Australia. I identify two philosophical mandates of the oral history project in Australia that have shaped my creative practice: an emphasis on the analysis of the interviewee’s subjective experience as a means of understanding the past, and the desire to engage a wide audience in order to promote empathy towards the subject. The discussion around fiction in the oral history project is in its infancy. In order to deepen the debate, I draw on the more mature discussion in ethnographic fiction. I rely on literary theorists Steven Greenblatt, Dorrit Cohn and Gerard Genette to develop a clear understanding of the distinct narrative qualities of fiction, in order to explore how fiction can re-present and explore an interviewee’s subjective experience, and engage a wide readership. I document my own methodology for producing a work of fiction that is enriched by oral history methodology and theory, and responds to the mandates of the project. I demonstrate the means by which fiction and the oral history project can enter a dialogue in the truest sense of the word: a two-way conversation that enriches and augments practice in both fields. The second part of the PhD is a novel, set in Brisbane and based on oral history interviews and archival material I gathered over the course of the project. The novel centres on Brisbane artist Evelyn, who has been given an impossible task: a derelict old house is about to be demolished, and she must capture its history in a sculpture that will be built on the site. Evelyn struggles to come up with ideas and create the sculpture, realising that she has no way to discover who inhabited the house. What follows is a series of stories, each set in a different era in Brisbane’s history, which take the reader backwards through the house’s history. Hidden Objects is a novel about the impossibility of grasping the past and the powerful pull of storytelling. The novel is an experiment in a hybrid form and is accompanied by an appendix that identifies the historically accurate sources informing the fiction. The decisions about the aesthetics of the novel were a direct result of my engagement with the mandates of the oral history project in Australia. The novel was shortlisted in the 2012 Queensland Literary Awards, unpublished manuscript category. The Artful Life Story: The Oral History Interview as Fiction ii Table of Contents Keywords ................................................................................................................................................. i Abstract................................................................................................................................................... ii Table of Contents................................................................................................................................... iii Statement of Original Authorship ......................................................................................................... vii Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................................. viii CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................................... 1 1.1 Description of project .................................................................................................................. 1 1.2 Research question ........................................................................................................................ 2 1.3 Development of the project ......................................................................................................... 2 1.4 The dialogue between history and fiction .................................................................................... 4 1.4.1 Historical fiction and history in Australia ........................................................................ 4 1.4.2 The value of interdisciplinarity in the dialogue between oral historians and fiction writers 5 1.4.3 Is oral history art or science?............................................................................................ 7 1.5 Fiction writers acknowledging interviews ................................................................................... 9 1.6 The problem of ‘hybrid genres’ and Hidden objects: Wider context for the work .................... 10 1.6.1 Distinguishing hybrid genres ......................................................................................... 11 1.6.2 Labelling Hidden Objects .............................................................................................. 14 1.6.3 Reality Hunger ............................................................................................................... 15 1.6.4 Key terms ....................................................................................................................... 16 1.7 Thesis Outline ........................................................................................................................... 18 CHAPTER 2: THE ORAL HISTORY PROJECT IN AUSTRALIA ........................................... 20 2.1 What is the project of oral history in Australia? ........................................................................ 20 2.1.1 Defining ‘the oral history project’ .................................................................................. 20 2.1.2 The Oral History Association of Australia ..................................................................... 21 2.1.3 The place of fiction in the philosophical underpinnings of the Australian oral history project ............................................................................................................................ 22 2.2 Emphasis on subjective experience ........................................................................................... 23 2.2.1 Oral histories as interpretations ...................................................................................... 23 2.2.2 Narrating the past in the present ..................................................................................... 24 The Artful Life Story: The Oral History Interview as Fiction iii 2.3 Implied readership/dissemination and availability to a wider community ................................ 24 2.4 What does this mean for a fiction writer working with oral histories? ...................................... 25 CHAPTER 3: FICTIONALISING ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEWS: ETHNOGRAPHIC FICTION AND THE ORAL HISTORY PROJECT ......................................................................................... 26 3.1 The purpose of linking oral history with ethnographic fiction .................................................. 26 3.2 Fiction and the oral history project in Australia: A new practice .............................................. 26 3.2.1 Oral history as an interdisciplinary field ........................................................................ 27 3.2.2 Fiction and oral history .................................................................................................. 28 3.2.3 Expanding the discussion ............................................................................................... 30 3.3 Ethnographic fiction based on interviews ................................................................................. 31 3.3.1 What is ethnographic fiction? ........................................................................................ 31 3.4 Why fiction? How the aims of ethnographic fiction writers align with the oral history project in Australia 35 3.4.1 Crisis of representation .................................................................................................. 35 3.4.2 Fiction as a liberating practice ....................................................................................... 36 3.4.3 The specific philosophical endeavours of the oral history project and fiction ............... 37 CHAPTER 4: THE KEY AIMS OF THE ORAL HISTORY PROJECT AND THE POSSIBILITIES OF FICTION ..................................................................................................................................... 38 4.1 Introduction ............................................................................................................................... 38 4.1.1 Fiction as a means of representing culture ..................................................................... 39 4.1.2 A metaphorical rather than literal truth .......................................................................... 41 4.2 Emphasis on subjective experience ..........................................................................................
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