Clio, can you hear us? Oral sources and archives for historical research: the Italian case

The historiographical legitimacy of oral history has yet to be recognised in Italian academia. Scholars of contemporary history rarely use this methodology, and existing oral archives are overlooked by the very researchers who should be consulting them. Recent histories of the Italian Republic written by Italian authors neither draw on oral sources nor cite the historiography that has employed them. There are also no Italian books that systematically use oral sources to analyse the country’s long-term social history, and even when ego-documents are used in Italian historiography, ‘autobiographical writings’ (e.g. letters, diaries, memoirs) are considered much more legitimate than oral sources. There are at least three possible explanations for this situation. Firstly, sound studies have barely developed in Italian historiography, and many contemporary historians tend to prioritise institutional political history over social history and the history of collective subjects (women, workers, suburbs). Secondly, there is a problem relating to the preservation of oral history archives, which are difficult to access and do not have the tools to facilitate their use, such as catalogues, indexes, files and transcripts. Thirdly, there is a lack of proven and shared experience in the historiographical reuse of archival oral sources, that is, interviews conducted in the past with individuals and social groups who are no longer available.