On this week’s episode of Talking Radical Radio, Scott Price talks about his work with the Oral History Centre at the University of Winnipeg and with Local 832 of the United Food and Commercial Workers unearthing histories of working-class (including working-class feminist) struggles.
All too often, the blood and sweat that make struggle happen are remembered by those who spilled them but are erased from the social memory that the rest of us constitute, learn from, and share. However, though they remain too few and too poorly resourced, there are some wonderful examples of participants in and supporters of movements doing historical work to challenge that erasure. One very useful technique for doing this is that of oral history — grounding historical accounts of movements in the reminiscences of participants in those movements. Price is using oral history techniques to recover crucial stories from the history of the labour movement in Manitoba, including around the growth of feminism within the labour movement. He talks with me about what he has found and how he has found it in the course of that project, and about the importance of oral history as a way to ensure that the movements that have shaped our world are not forgotten.
To learn more about the Oral History Centre, click here. To find out more about UFCW Local 832, go here.
Talking Radical Radio brings you grassroots voices from across Canada through in-depth interviews that concentrate not on current events or the crisis of the moment, but on giving people involved in a broad range of social change work a chance to take a longer view as they talk about what they do, how they do it, and why they do it. To learn more about the show in general, click here.
You can also learn more about ways to listen or go to the show’s page on rabble.ca. To learn more about suggesting grassroots groups and organizations for future shows, click here. For details on the show’s theme music, click here.
Talking Radical Radio is brought to you by Scott Neigh, a writer, media producer, and activist based in Sudbury, Ontario, and the author of two books examining Canadian history through the stories of activists.
