TY  - JOUR
T1  - Story alteration in oral history retellings: Methods of comparative work
A1  - Mlynar, Jakub
A1  - Kocian, Jiri
A1  - Maliukov, Hryhorii
A1  - Roginer Hofmeister, Karin
JA  - Narrative Inquiry
Y1  - 2025
VL  - 35
IS  - 2
SP  - 315–336
UR  - https://www.jbe-platform.com/content/journals/10.1075/ni.24018.mly
M2  - doi: 10.1075/ni.24018.mly
KW  - comparative research
KW  - digital archives
KW  - ethnomethodology
KW  - genocide
KW  - holocaust
KW  - memory
KW  - narrative structure
KW  - oral history
KW  - remembering
KW  - visual history
N2  - The digitalization of oral history (OH) has resulted in the availability of multiple interviews conducted with the same narrator under different circumstances. To explore the comparability of such materials, we analyze interviews with a Holocaust survivor from the Fortunoff Video Archive (1979) and the Visual History Archive (1997), focusing on instances in which she tells the “same” episode. We demonstrate that life-story segments before and after the episode provide clues for sense-making and reflexively constitute the narrative environment. The specific interactional features of OH as a situated practice contribute to the story’s recognizability and discursive alteration. Similarities and differences are detectable due to the coherence established by the social setting of OH, including its availability in a digital archive, which guarantees comparability and incorporates a broader chronology. The main contribution of our paper is methodological, as it outlines an apparatus for the comparative analysis of OH across multiple databases.
ER  -