SUNY series in Oral and Public History – serie

Portelli offers a new and challenging approach to oral history, with an interdisciplinary and multicultural perspective. Examining cultural conflict and communication between social groups and classes in industrial societies, he identifies the way individuals strive to create memories in order to make sense of their lives, and evaluates the impact of the fieldwork experience on the consciousness of the researcher. By recovering the value of the story-telling experience, Portelli's work makes delightful reading for the specialist and non-specialist alike.

An ethnography and oral history of miners and their families in Kentucky focusing on political ideology and working class consciousnessThis is an oral history and ethnography of miners and their families in Kentucky focusing on political ideology and working class consciousness.Harlan County, Kentucky emerged in the public eye during the 1930s when poverty, unemployment, and violent unionization struggles caught the attention of the national news media and the American people. It burst on the scene again during the 1972-73 Brookside strike, an event chronicled in the Academy Award-winning film, "Harlan County, U.S.A." In this book the author brings the American reader up to date on this interesting community by documenting the everyday lives of Harlan miners and their families in the mid-1980s.Using a neo-Marxian perspective, Two Sides to Everything characterizes the nature, limitations, and transformative potential of class consciousness among two generations of Harlan miners. It also elucidates the apparent contradictions between popular images of central Appalachians, as militant labor activists, on one hand, and passive, traditional, fatalistic "hillbillies," on the other. The book accomplishes these tasks through a systematic consideration of the relationship between the central experiential bases and sources of identity among Harlan county miners-class, kinship, community, religion, and gender.

An oral and local history of the coal mining town of Donetsk in the Ukraine. The workers describe their changing political and economic goals and their reaction to Western culture, the rising tides of nationalism and religionIn July 1989 coal miners throughout the Soviet Union engaged in a massive strike that briefly captured world headlines and inaugurated a movement of strike committees that persisted across the Soviet/post-Soviet divide. In this collection of interviews and essays based on encounters over a three-year period, the voices of industrial workers and their families in the eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk, the coal capital of the Donbass, are heard.The stories collected here allow Western readers to "hear" these people describe their struggles for survival and identity in conditions of economic, political and social disintegration/transformation; and to analyze their testimonies and other kinds of texts in terms of changing meanings of work, gender, and national identity. Included are an examination of the "older generation" that came of age during the Stalin era; an analysis of the miners' movement and the trade union politics that emerged out of the strike of 1989; and a focus on the social crises and cultural disorientations accompanying Ukrainian independence.

In their own words, the stories of the men and women who are the planners, architects, community organizers—the hidden builders—of the modern state of Israel.This book documents the goals, lives, experiences, and practice of planners, architects, and community organizers who have contributed to the physical and social development of the modern state of Israel. In their own words, these "community builders" share their professional experiences of how they protect and rebuild cities and neighborhoods, how they overcome stereotypes and bureaucratic inertia, how they protect the natural environment and the public health as well. The stories illustrate the practical world of community change in which aesthetics and politics, ethnicity and tradition, commitment and inspiration, hard work and hope all play a part. Students of urban and community life in many countries will be able to draw elements and themes from these particular stories that resonate with their own concerns, experience, and future work.

An ethnography and oral history of miners and their families in Kentucky focusing on political ideology and working class consciousnessThis is an oral history and ethnography of miners and their families in Kentucky focusing on political ideology and working class consciousness.Harlan County, Kentucky emerged in the public eye during the 1930s when poverty, unemployment, and violent unionization struggles caught the attention of the national news media and the American people. It burst on the scene again during the 1972-73 Brookside strike, an event chronicled in the Academy Award-winning film, "Harlan County, U.S.A." In this book the author brings the American reader up to date on this interesting community by documenting the everyday lives of Harlan miners and their families in the mid-1980s.Using a neo-Marxian perspective, Two Sides to Everything characterizes the nature, limitations, and transformative potential of class consciousness among two generations of Harlan miners. It also elucidates the apparent contradictions between popular images of central Appalachians, as militant labor activists, on one hand, and passive, traditional, fatalistic "hillbillies," on the other. The book accomplishes these tasks through a systematic consideration of the relationship between the central experiential bases and sources of identity among Harlan county miners-class, kinship, community, religion, and gender.

Providing new information on women's participation in the Moroccan independence movement, Voices of Resistance offers a rare opportunity to hear Moroccan women speak freely about their personal lives. Each woman is introduced in terms of her family background and personal style, and the interviews are given texture and context by references to Moroccan history and popular culture, including contemporary songs and poems. These women are storytellers, and they lived through stirring times. Their active struggle against French colonialism also challenged and redefined traditional Moroccan ideas about women's roles in society. The narratives reconstruct the little-known history of Moroccan feminism and nationalism, and probe the lives of a remarkable group of Islamic women whose voices have never been heard until now.

Compares the experiences of Soviet/Russian Jewish immigrants to the U.S. during two different time frames.This ethnographic study compares and contrasts the changing ethnic identity of those Russian Jews who settled in Hartford, Connecticut between 1881 and 1930 with that of the Soviet Jews who remained in Russia after the Revolution, became Soviet citizens, and emigrated after 1975. Although both groups were labeled "Jews," their internal definitions of what constituted being Jewish and their personal experiences were radically different. Using both archival and contemporary oral histories, Betty N. Hoffman traces the stories of real people whose lives and choices were affected by both their ethnic identity and the larger movements around them as they made new homes in the United States.

Compares the experiences of Soviet/Russian Jewish immigrants to the U.S. during two different time frames.This ethnographic study compares and contrasts the changing ethnic identity of those Russian Jews who settled in Hartford, Connecticut between 1881 and 1930 with that of the Soviet Jews who remained in Russia after the Revolution, became Soviet citizens, and emigrated after 1975. Although both groups were labeled "Jews," their internal definitions of what constituted being Jewish and their personal experiences were radically different. Using both archival and contemporary oral histories, Betty N. Hoffman traces the stories of real people whose lives and choices were affected by both their ethnic identity and the larger movements around them as they made new homes in the United States.