Testimonies of Power and Practice: Oral History As a Social Work Methodology for Social Justice

Oral history is a powerful methodology for documenting lived experiences, particularly within communities historically marginalized within social welfare and broader state systems. Derived from Black and Indigenous oral traditions of memory-keeping (Samuel & Thompson, 2021), oral history was later adapted into Western research methodologies for its ability to surface voices excluded from dominant historical narratives (Mulvihill & Swaminathan, 2021). At its core, oral history values memory, relational knowledge transmission, and the multiplicity of meaning (Portelli, 2013), offering a means to disrupt hegemonic understandings of history, care, and justice.

In social work, oral history offers a unique approach to engaging with communities, allowing them to shape their own narratives, resist institutional erasure, and assert agency in the storytelling process. When practiced ethically, oral history aligns with social work's stated values of self-determination, social justice, and empowerment - positioning community members not as subjects but as knowledge-holders and co-producers of meaning. Inspired by Maylei Blackwell's (2011) concept of "retrofitting" history, this roundtable explores how oral history can illuminate overlooked and "unsanctioned" histories, recover intergenerational knowledge, and serve as counter-narratives to state violence and pathologizing discourses. The aim of this roundtable is to provide an array of options for current and future social work practitioners to engage with oral history at every eco-systemic level.

This roundtable brings together scholars, researchers, and practitioners who engage oral history both as a process and an outcome in social work research and practice. Drawing from a range of projects - including community memory initiatives and oral history social welfare research - speakers will highlight best practices for recruitment, interviewing, and collaborative storytelling. They will discuss how oral history methodology demands a relational approach that challenges dominant notions of Western professionalism (e.g., timeliness, objectivity, directness), instead embracing values grounded in trust, reciprocity, and mutual care.

Speakers will also explore ethical considerations around informed consent, trauma-informed interviewing, and community-centered archiving to ensure that narrators retain control over their stories. By centering the voices of marginalized communities and positioning them as active knowledge producers, oral history is not just a method of documentation, but a political and social intervention that can be used to fill archival silences, affirm dignity and autonomy, and build intergenerational solidarity. The roundtable will offer concrete strategies for social workers, researchers, and community organizers seeking to integrate oral history in ways that affirm dignity, autonomy, and intergenerational solidarity while addressing archival gaps in the historical record.