Investigating oral history

This interview with Professor Jan Vansina, conducted in the mid-1980s by Szilárd Biernaczky, is the result of extensive correspondence between the two. After a brief introduction to the achievements of the distinguished and pioneering scholar of African history, the interview addresses the following issues: 1. the current status of oral history research; 2. new theories in the field of oral history research; 3. ethno-history versus oral history; 4. ethnography, ethnology, European peasantry, and oral history; 5. the mythical dimension of the “beginning” and its inherent historical models (“outbound” segments, migration, new conquest, first ancestors, etc.); 6. oral history as a source of nationalist movements in Africa; 7. the appreciation of oral history (and its research) and African cultural movements