History of the textile industry in Twente and Tilburg

Knooppunt “Sprekende geschiedenis,” in collaboration with De MuseumFabriek in Twente and the Textile Museum in Tilburg, has launched a pilot project as part of the National Historical Initiative: History of the Textile Industry in Twente and Tilburg.

The history of the textile industry and its impact on the lives of the people who worked in it, as well as on the surrounding environment, is largely unknown to many Dutch people. From an oral history perspective, we are particularly interested in the stories of individuals who were connected to this industry in various ways and the new insights these stories can offer. This pilot project in Twente, Tilburg, and the surrounding areas provides an opportunity to uncover forgotten stories, collect new narratives, and develop presentations that engage a young and diverse audience.

“Sprekende geschiedenis” will play a supporting role in locating existing oral history interviews, digitizing and preserving them, and developing a methodological approach for new interviews. We will also analyze the similarities and differences between the two regions. The findings will be documented and widely shared through an essay.

Hidden Stories: Launch of the FARO project

Together with Stichting OPEN and the Network Digital Heritage (NDE), Knooppunt “Sprekende geschiedenis” has launched the project Hidden Stories: Preserving, Connecting, and Presenting Oral History, made possible with support from the FARO program.

Sustainably preserving, documenting, and presenting oral history collections often proves challenging, especially for smaller (local) organizations, communities, and volunteer initiatives. However, these groups frequently have access to surprising stories and new perspectives on tangible and intangible heritage, which can be captured and shared with a broader audience through oral history.

The goal of the Hidden Stories project is to collaborate with various heritage partners and local initiatives across three provinces to explore how a practical (provincial) support structure can be established. This structure will help local and regional oral history initiatives to independently preserve, document, and present their interview collections with light support—simple, accessible, and compliant with NDE standards. The project will focus on developing suitable collection registration systems, metadata standards, and terminology lists that enhance searchability and connectivity. Additionally, it will investigate options for providing local support for transcription, sustainable preservation, and presentation.

The project, which runs until mid-2026, will share its results widely through all participating organizations. We will regularly update our newsletter and website with progress and findings from this valuable initiative, which aims to bring heritage participation by diverse groups one step closer to realization.

StoRe-project: preserving and providing sustainable access to Oral history

The StoRe project is a collaboration between “Sprekende geschiedenis”, DANS, and Vrije Universiteit (VU), with support from NIDI and Beeld en Geluid (The Netherlands Institute for Sound & Vision). StoRe stands for Storing Oral Histories for Future Reuse Across Communities and focuses on making existing infrastructures more accessible while promoting the reuse of oral history data.

The project develops guidelines for sustainable (FAIR) preservation and reuse of oral history data and works on building a national network. Since 1 November, Maarten Heerlien has joined the team as an information specialist at the VU. If you have any questions about sustainable preservation or reuse of oral histories, you can reach him at m.heerlien@vu.nl.

StoRe is a TDCC SSH Bottleneck Project and is funded by NWO.

Storianan Skondi di Karibe (The Hidden Stories of the Caribbean) on steam

Rose Mary Allen interviews woman in the 80s/90s

Since January 2024, “Sprekende geschiedenis” together with Extraordinary Professor of Culture, Community and History Rose- Mary Allen, the National Archives of Curaçao, the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision and DANS (the digital archive of the KNAW) have been carrying out the “Hidden Stories of the Caribbean” project.

One of the goals of this project is to digitize Rose Mary Allen’s oral history material from the 1980s and 1990s and make it suitable for reuse. In addition, we want to present (fragments) from the stories to a (young) audience.

At the moment the state of affairs is:

• All files/cassettes have been digitized by Patrick Martijn on behalf of Image & Sound.
• Through Imagine IC we have started a collaboration with “Dance me your story” (A co-creation of foundation Zichtbaar).
• Young people at different schools in Amsterdam, based on excerpts from the interviews and their own imagination, will work on making public presentations in different creative ways.
• On Curaçao, MBO teacher Clay Toppenberg will also work with young people to create texts, performances and film based on the fragments. The presentations will take place at school and at the Curaçao National Archives.
• With the help of many people fluent in Papiamentu, a speech recognition program Whisper is being trained to convert spoken texts into written ones. To this end, they are working with Rick Vink of the School of Datascience. This is useful for making transcriptions, but also for wider use.
• Together with Marta Dijkhoff, director of the National Language Institute Curaçao, ways to make the speech recognition software sustainable and accessible to a wider audience in Curaçao, Bonaire and Aruba are being examined.

As part of the Hidden Histories trajectory, The New Institute, together with the Fonds voor de Creatieve Industrie, is organizing a symposium on November 30. The project Storianan Skondi di Karibe is part of this trajectory and will participate in a panel. More information will follow soon!

This project is made possible in part by:

Tip: If you only knew | Çiğdem Yüksel | Fotomuseum Rotterdam

Yüksel is recording an interview

Starting in the late 1960s, the first women from Turkey came to the Netherlands to build new lives here. What did those lives look like? We know very little about them. The exhibition “Je moest eens weten” and the eponymous publication by photographer and artist Çiğdem Yüksel, tell the stories of these women using the oral history method and show powerful images of women on motorcycles, in family settings, in factories and demonstrating: tough and inspiring, but also vulnerable and tender.

‘Sprekende geschiedenis’ made an important contribution to the book with the chapter “From Turkey to the Netherlands,” a historical context describing the arrival of the first generation of women starting in 1964. The book is available in no less than three languages: Dutch (Je moest eens weten) , English (If you only knew) and Turkish (Bir bilsen).

More information about the book ‘Je moest eens weten’ can be found here.

In addition, the exhibition is on view at the Fotomuseum Rotterdam until May 25, 2025.

Successful opening of Forty Women to Never Forget exhibition

Friday, Sept. 13 marked the opening of the traveling exhibition “Forty Women to Never Forget,” about the history of the Turkish and Moroccan women’s movement in the Netherlands, at emancipation center Vrouw en Vaart in Amsterdam.

The traveling exhibition brings to life the history of the HTKB (Hollanda Türkiye Kadinlar Birligi, founded in 1975) and the MVVN (Marokkaanse Vrouwen Vereniging Nederland, founded in 1982) in a collection of impressive video stories.

It was a beautiful day with engaging guest speakers who talked about the importance of preserving these stories for Dutch history, a voice game in which fragments of the stories of the women interviewed were reenacted, a tissue session with artist Rosa Smits, and of course the many beautiful and moving reactions to the exhibition.

This special project gives a voice to the women who have paved the way for many others over the past 47 years. Their strength and stories deserve to be heard and cherished,” Esmah Lahlah, Member of Parliament (PvdA/GL)

_{Foto: Saskia Moerbeek in gesprek met Esmah Lahlah, Tweede Kamerlid (PvdA/GL).}

_{Photo: Theater based on excerpts from the stories of the women interviewed.}

Afterwards, guest curator Karima Aissaoui was a guest on NOS’ radio program “Met het Oog op Morgen,” where she talked with Chris Kijne about the women who have worked for others in the shadow of ‘mainstream feminism’. The broadcast can be listened to here. 

_{Photo: Textile art with photos of the women involved made by Nora Hendriks}

The traveling exhibition can be seen at Emancipatiecentrum Vrouw en Vaart in Amsterdam through Oct. 7, and at Ru Paré, until Oct. 24. After that, the exhibition will also be on display in The Hague (St. Yasmin), Rotterdam (Dona Daria), Utrecht and Eindhoven. Keep an eye on this page for updates and exact locations.

Thanks to all the wonderful women who told their stories and, of course, everyone who participated in this wonderful project.

Want more information about this project? Then click here.

Photos by Marlise Steeman.

Kick-off FeMig.Lab in Berlin

Last week we were invited to the kick-off of the project FeMig.Lab: Female Labor Migration in European History in Berlin. This initiative is organized by Minor – Projektkontor für Bildung und Forschung in cooperation with Humanity in Action Poland, the Ethnographic Museum of Istria, LVR Industrial Museums and the Center for the History of Migrants.

Over the next two years, this network will actively consider ways to make different perspectives of women migrants in Europe visible in museums, through scholarly research and within NGO projects, and develop a digital platform with biographical narratives of female labor migration in Europe.

As part of this European network, ”Sprekende geschiedenis” contributes as an expert in oral history and shares knowledge gained from the oral history project ”The History of the Turkish and Moroccan Women’s Movement in 40 Stories.”

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New instruction video: How to set up an Oral history project?

The Oral History Hub “Sprekende geschiedenis” has developed a new instructional video in collaboration with photographer and filmmaker Armando Ello. This video is made for anyone who wants to start an oral history project. Find out what is involved in setting up an oral history project in this handy video. Learn what oral history is, how to set up a project, capture stories and archive them.

The video covers the following topics:

00:00 – What is oral history?

00:35 – How do you start an oral history project?

03:23 – Preparing for interviews

05:36 – Consent and GDPR

06:12 – Interview techniques

07:12 – Archiving

08:00 – Transcribing

09:21 – Storage of archives

09:53 – Registering for the basic course

The Dutch Oral History Hub ”Sprekende geschiedenis” is a national networking organization dedicated to sharing, encouraging and developing knowledge and experience in the field of oral history. For more information, visit getting started

Are you fluent in Papiamentu?

Curaçao has a lot of old audio material that is of value for the historiography of the island. Consider, for example, the oral history interviews Rose Mary Allen conducted in the 1980s and 1990s. This is important heritage, but unfortunately Papiamentu is not yet included in AI speech recognition software. This hinders people from quickly and efficiently transcribing audio recordings in Papiamentu and making the material accessible.

Together, we can solve this problem! We can train the software with the beautiful sounds of Papiamentu so that we can easily convert spoken texts Papiamentu into written texts. But for this we need your help.

The recordings take a maximum of 30 seconds and it can be done simply with a phone. We understand that your time is precious, but it won’t take much time. We will provide the lyrics, all you have to do is read aloud, record it and mail it to us.

The more people participate, the better we can train the programme. With your contribution, we will ensure an important development for the heritage of Curaçao and Papiamentu!

Want to join? Email us for more information and the texts at mila@sprekendegeschiedenis.nl

The call is also available for download in pdf-format. Sharing the call is appreciated.

Photo: ‘Curaçao, W.I., WILLEMSTAD, Entrance

Translated with DeepL.com

Call for Papers for the 9th Symposium of the Finnish Oral History Network FOHN

Memory in Movement: Pace, Connection & Introspection

28th–29th November 2024, University of Jyväskylä, Finland

This conference critically explores the concept of ‘movement’ in relation to oral history and memory studies. ‘Movement’ is defined broadly and inclusively: it can refer to social movements, physical movement, or movement across concrete or conceptual borders. It can be interpreted as the movements that have shaped oral history as a discipline, from its inception to today. Moreover, the memories oral historians study are constantly in motion, with the present framing people’s recollection and understanding of the past. In this conference ‘movement’ is therefore paired with the notion of ‘pace’, accentuating the importance of temporality for the study of oral history. We invite researchers and practitioners to approach their work from an introspective angle, examining how subjective experiences and social factors impact the speed at which oral history is conducted.

The ninth international symposium of the Finnish Oral History Network (FOHN) will focus on the themes of movement, pace, and introspection in oral history and memory studies research from a critical and exploratory perspective. The conference offers researchers an interdisciplinary setting in which to connect and present cutting-edge ideas. The conference’s keynote speakers are Lynn Abrams (University of Glasow), Daniele Salerno (Utrecht University), Kirsti Jõesalu (University of Tartu) and Samira Saramo (Migration Institute of Finland).

They wish to invite contributions involving methodological, analytical, and ethical questions, as well as case studies. Proposals may be submitted for individual papers or panels and can address, but are not limited to, the following themes and topics:

• Social movements and oral history.
• Does conceptualising researchers as activists challenge established oral history practices?
• The ways in which emotions can move the interviewer and/or responder.
• What ethical considerations must we account for when incorporating the study of emotions into oral history and memory studies?
• How does speed and timing influence how emotions are recorded, analysed, or internalized in our research processes?
• Physical movement, the body and oral history interviewing. For example, how might moving through memorable spaces evoke visceral reminiscences?
• Digital humanities and changes to how we collect, process, and analyse memories. Technology and how it shapes oral history into a reproducible, codable, and ‘fast’ process. How much time do we need to meaningfully connect with our research subjects?
• The pace at which change within oral history has occurred. What connects/distinguishes oral historians working across the decades?
• Has oral history ‘matured’ into a stable and agreed upon methodology?
   

Individual paper submissions require a title and a maximum 250-word abstract. Panel proposals should include a title and a 250-word description of the panel, and a title plus 250-word abstract for each individual paper (maximum five papers per panel). The conference language will be English.

To learn more and submit your proposal, please visit the conference website or alternatively email them at fohn2024@jyu.fi