Inclusion or imposition? The life-story interview as knowledge production

Abstract

This article considers the implications of conducting life story interviews. It argues that the life story interview is a method of knowledge production that is based on a number of underlying assumptions about what constitutes a life story, how it is best captured, and who can and should tell a life story. The life story interview produces knowledges through several phases, including the interview, its archiving and its online dissemination. While the underlying assumptions of life story interviewing are generally understood to make this particular oral history practice more inclusive, this article asks what kinds of impositions this practice places on interviewees (as well as interviewers and audiences)