Ethical Code

“Sprekende geschiedenis” aims to support everyone working with oral history in making conscious and careful ethical decisions. Precisely because these ethical issues are highly context-dependent, oral history requires ongoing reflection and the exchange of experiences. The Dutch Ethical Code for Oral History is intended as a practical tool to support that reflection. By working with the code, making choices explicit, and keeping dilemmas open for discussion, we collectively strengthen the care and quality of oral history in the Netherlands. Therefore, we invite everyone who creates, manages, or uses oral history to actively apply the ethical code, share experiences, and contribute to its further development.

Why an Ethical Code for Oral History?

From the perspective of “Sprekende geschiedenis,” we see that creators, custodians, and users of oral history often look for guidance in making these kinds of decisions. That is why it is important to have ethical guidelines against which you can assess your project, methods, or research—not as a fixed framework, but as a shared reference that helps make conscious, well-founded choices.

The Dutch Ethical Code for Oral History provides that framework, offering guidance for all phases of the oral history process: from preparation and recording to processing, preservation, and reuse. The full Dutch Ethical Code for Oral History can be consulted below as a PDF.

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Development of the Ethical Code

The Dutch Ethical Code for Oral History was developed within the StoRe project (Storing Oral Histories for Reuse across Communities). This collaborative project of Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, “Sprekende geschiedenis,” and DANS-KNAW, supported by NIDI, aimed to identify barriers to the sustainable archiving and reuse of oral history interviews.

In co-creation with researchers, staff from community archives, and heritage professionals, the most urgent ethical issues in practice were explored. The code is based on existing international ethical codes, recent scholarly literature, and the broad voluntary contributions from the Dutch oral history field. The first version of the code was presented in December 2025.

A Living Document

The Dutch Ethical Code for Oral History is explicitly not a static document. Social, cultural, and technological developments—such as digitalisation, AI, and evolving views on ownership and reuse—require ongoing reflection on oral history practice.

Therefore, it has been agreed that the code will be periodically evaluated and adjusted where necessary. The Oral History Working Group of the Huizinga Institute and “Sprekende geschiedenis” share joint responsibility for this process. If you have questions or wish to discuss the Dutch Ethical Code for Oral History further, you can leave a message here.

Maintenance and Development in the Field

The maintenance of the Ethical Code takes place in close connection with practice. Every year, during the “Sprekende geschiedenis” symposium, explicit time is dedicated to discussing ethical dilemmas and sharing experiences in applying the code. In addition, the code is addressed during the Historici Dagen, where researchers, heritage professionals, and other stakeholders discuss current developments and challenges in the oral history field. This ensures that the Ethical Code remains relevant to the daily practice of oral history and can evolve along with the discipline.

This page is partly based on information from the official website of the Dutch Ethical Code for Oral History: https://ecoh.nl