Democracy and power, on the 18th International Oral History Congress
From 9 to 12 July, the University of Barcelona, together with other institutions, organises the 18th International Oral History Congress, commissioned by the International Oral History Association (IOHA). The Faculty of Geography and History and the Historic Building of the University of Barcelona (UB) host the Congress, focused on power and democracy. The strength of democracy, as well as the obstacles it must overcome, is the main topic of several projects of oral history developed all over the world. Oral history records, a democracy tool, give voice to every kind of social figures.
From 9 to 12 July, the University of Barcelona, together with other institutions, organises the 18th International Oral History Congress, commissioned by the International Oral History Association (IOHA). The Faculty of Geography and History and the Historic Building of the University of Barcelona (UB) host the Congress, focused on power and democracy. The strength of democracy, as well as the obstacles it must overcome, is the main topic of several projects of oral history developed all over the world. Oral history records, a democracy tool, give voice to every kind of social figures.
The opening takes place on Wednesday 9 July, at 9.30 a.m., at the Paranymph Hall of UB. It is chaired by the rector, Dr Dídac Ramírez, together with representatives of the Government of Catalonia and the Barcelona City Council, the president of IOHA, Ana María de la O Castellanos, and Carles Santacana, president of the organizing committee and director of the Department of Contemporary History of UB.
The opening lecture “Principio y final de un sueño, la Barcelona republicana entre 1931 y 1939” is pronounced by Mercedes Vilanova. The congress analyses issues related to archives, oral sources and memory; power in human relationships; democracy as a political tool; oral sources and cultural heritage, and new ways to disseminate oral history. In order to deal with these questions, the congress gathers 400 participants from about 30 different countries and a great number of prestigious professionals from worldwide universities and research centres. The congress is divided into five plenary sessions and eighty-nine simultaneous working tables; it also includes presentations and workshops.
Among participants, we highlight four founding members of the International Oral History Committee, created in the seventies in Europe: Gerhard Botz, director of the Institute of Contemporary History of the University of Vienna; Alexander von Plato, from the universities of Hagen and Berlin, former director of the journal BIOS - Zeitschrift für Biographieforschung and first secretary of IOHA; Alessandro Portelli, expert from the Sapienza University of Rome who founded the Circolo Gianni Bosio (1972) and the journal I Giorni Cantati, and Mercedes Vilanova, retired professor from UB who organised the 5th International Oral History Congress in 1985, founded the journal Historia y Fuente Oral in 1989 and was the first woman president of IOHA in 1996.
Other experts in oral history who participate in the congress are: Donald Ritchie (USA), Irina Sherbakova (Russia), Albert Lichtblau (Austria), Arzu Öztürkmen (Turkey), Miroslav Vanek (Czech Republic), Marieta de Moraes Ferreira (Brazil), Alistair Thompson (Australia), Robert Perks (United Kingdom) and Anne-Marie Granet-Abisset (Françe). Claudi Esteva Fabregat, emeritus professor of UB who founded the Department of Cultural Anthropology in 1972, participates too.