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The Narrative Turn, Corporate Storytelling, and Oral History: Canada’s Petroleum Oral History Project and Truth and Reconciliation Commission Call to Action No. 92

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 January 2019

JANIS THIESSEN
JANIS THIESSEN*
Affiliation:
Janis Thiessen is a professor of History at the University of Winnipeg, and the author of three books on oral history, business, and labor. My thanks to Christopher Kobrak, Alexander Freund, Kimberley Moore, Kent Davies, Scott Price, and the anonymous reviewers for their comments on earlier drafts. Parts of this article were presented at the Association of Business Historians and Gesellschaft für Unternehmensgeschichte International Conference, Humboldt University, Berlin, in May 2016; and at the Canadian Business History Association Conference, “150 Years of Canadian Business History,” Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto, in September 2017. E-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

As business historians embrace the narrative turn, they would do well to consider the opportunities provided by oral history. For-profit corporate storytellers offer one approach. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) of Canada’s call to action no. 92, however, offers a better one. This article explores the potential impact on business historians of the TRC, using the Petroleum Industry Oral History Project as an example.

Type
Special Section on Oral History
Information
Enterprise & Society , Volume 20 , Issue 1 , March 2019 , pp. 60 - 73
Copyright
Copyright © The Author 2019. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Business History Conference. All rights reserved. 

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References

Bibliography of Works Cited

Dunaway, David K., and Baum, Willa K., eds. Oral History: An Interdisciplinary Anthology, 2nd ed. Lanham, MD: AltaMira Press, 1996.Google Scholar
Hoffman, Lorraine. Inkonze: The Stones of Traditional Knowledge: A Story of the Athabasca Tar Sands. Edmonton: Thunderwoman Ethnographics, 2002.Google Scholar
Llewellyn, Kristina R., Freund, Alexander, and Reilly, Nolan, eds. The Canadian Oral History Reader. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2015.Google Scholar
Perks, Robert, and Thomson, Alistair, eds. The Oral History Reader, 3rd ed. New York: Routledge, 2016.Google Scholar
Portelli, Alessandro. The Battle of Valle Giulia: Oral History and the Art of Dialogue. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1997.Google Scholar
Portelli, Alessandro. The Death of Luigi Trastulli and Other Stories: Form and Meaning in Oral History. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1991.Google Scholar
Portelli, Alessandro. The Order Has Been Carried Out: History, Memory, and the Meaning of a Nazi Massacre in Rome. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sheftel, Anna, and Zembrzycki, Stacey, eds. Oral History Off the Record: Toward an Ethnography of Practice. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yow, Valerie Raleigh. Recording Oral History: A Guide for the Humanities and Social Sciences, 2nd ed. Walnut Creek, CA: Altamira Press, 2005.Google Scholar
Berger, Justice Thomas R. Northern Frontier, Northern Homeland: The Report of the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline Inquiry. Ottawa: Supply and Services Canada, unpublished.Google Scholar
Birley, Susan. “The Petroleum Industry Oral History Project: Collecting Data for Business and History.” Oral History Forum d’histoire orale 8 (1985): 32–40.Google Scholar
Brown, Ian. “Tracing Burma’s Economic Failure to Its Colonial Inheritance.” Business History Review 85, no. 4 (2011): 725–747.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
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Delahaye, Agnès, Booth, Charles, Clark, Peter, Procter, Stephen, and Rowlinson, Michael. “The Genre of Corporate History.” Journal of Organizational Change Management 22, no. 1 (2009): 27–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
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K’Meyer, Tracy E., and Crothers, A. Glenn. “‘If I See Some of This In Writing, I’m Going to Shoot You’: Reluctant Narrators, Taboo Topics, and the Ethical Dilemmas of the Oral Historian.” Oral History Review 34, no. 1 (2007): 71–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
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Passerini, Luisa. “Memories between Silence and Oblivion.” In Contested Pasts: The Politics of Memory, edited by Hodgkin, Katharine and Radstone, Susannah, 238–254. London: Routledge, 2003.Google Scholar
Rajak, Dinah. “Corporate Memory: Historical Revisionism, Legitimation and the Invention of Tradition in a Multinational Mining Company.” Political and Legal Anthropology Review 37, no. 2 (November2014): 259–280.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sheftel, Anna, and Zembrzycki, Stacey. “Only Human: A Reflection on the Ethical and Methodological Challenges of Working with ‘Difficult’ Stories.” Oral History Review 37, no. 2 (2010): 191–214.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shopes, Linda. “‘Insights and Oversights’: Reflections on the Documentary Tradition and the Theoretical Turn in Oral History.” Oral History Review 41, no. 2 (2014): 257–268.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thomson, Alistair. “Four Paradigm Transformations in Oral History.” Oral History Review 34, no. 1 (2007): 49–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada: Calls to Action. Winnipeg, Manitoba: Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, 2015. (http://nctr.ca/assets/reports/Calls_to_Action_English2.pdf).Google Scholar
van den Bersselaar, Dmitri. “‘Doorway to Success?’: Reconstructing African Careers in European Business from Company House Magazines and Oral History Interviews.” History in Africa 38, no. 1 (January 2011): 257–294.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
von Plato, Alexander. “Contemporary Witnesses and the Historical Profession: Remembrance, Communicative Transmission, and Collective Memory in Qualitative History.” Oral History Forum d’histoire orale 29 (2009): 1–27.Google Scholar
von Plato, Alexander, and Freund, Alexander. “Part 8: The German Approach to Oral History II.” Oral History Forum d’histoire orale 29 (2009). http://www.oralhistoryforum.ca/index.php/ohf/article/view/58Google Scholar
Wood, W. J. “The Petroleum Industry Oral History Project.” Oral History Forum d’histoire orale 8 (1985): 24–31.Google Scholar
Yow, Valerie. “‘Do I Like Them Too Much?’: Effects of the Oral History Interview on the Interviewer and Vice-Versa.” Oral History Review 24, no. 1 (Summer 1997): 55–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Frankfurter Allgemeine SonntagszeitungGoogle Scholar
The Globe and MailGoogle Scholar
Petroleum History Society, Calgary, AlbertaGoogle Scholar
Dunaway, David K., and Baum, Willa K., eds. Oral History: An Interdisciplinary Anthology, 2nd ed. Lanham, MD: AltaMira Press, 1996.Google Scholar
Hoffman, Lorraine. Inkonze: The Stones of Traditional Knowledge: A Story of the Athabasca Tar Sands. Edmonton: Thunderwoman Ethnographics, 2002.Google Scholar
Llewellyn, Kristina R., Freund, Alexander, and Reilly, Nolan, eds. The Canadian Oral History Reader. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2015.Google Scholar
Perks, Robert, and Thomson, Alistair, eds. The Oral History Reader, 3rd ed. New York: Routledge, 2016.Google Scholar
Portelli, Alessandro. The Battle of Valle Giulia: Oral History and the Art of Dialogue. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1997.Google Scholar
Portelli, Alessandro. The Death of Luigi Trastulli and Other Stories: Form and Meaning in Oral History. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1991.Google Scholar
Portelli, Alessandro. The Order Has Been Carried Out: History, Memory, and the Meaning of a Nazi Massacre in Rome. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sheftel, Anna, and Zembrzycki, Stacey, eds. Oral History Off the Record: Toward an Ethnography of Practice. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yow, Valerie Raleigh. Recording Oral History: A Guide for the Humanities and Social Sciences, 2nd ed. Walnut Creek, CA: Altamira Press, 2005.Google Scholar
Berger, Justice Thomas R. Northern Frontier, Northern Homeland: The Report of the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline Inquiry. Ottawa: Supply and Services Canada, unpublished.Google Scholar
Birley, Susan. “The Petroleum Industry Oral History Project: Collecting Data for Business and History.” Oral History Forum d’histoire orale 8 (1985): 32–40.Google Scholar
Brown, Ian. “Tracing Burma’s Economic Failure to Its Colonial Inheritance.” Business History Review 85, no. 4 (2011): 725–747.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Decker, Stephanie. “The Silence of the Archives: Business History, Post-Colonialism and archival Ethnography.” Management & Organizational History 8, no. 2 (May 2013): 155–173.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
De Jong, Abe, Higgins, David Michael, and van Driel, Hugo. “Towards a New Business History?” Business History 57 no. 1 (2015): 5–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Delahaye, Agnès, Booth, Charles, Clark, Peter, Procter, Stephen, and Rowlinson, Michael. “The Genre of Corporate History.” Journal of Organizational Change Management 22, no. 1 (2009): 27–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dillon, Niamh. “From Market Trader to Global Player: Oral History and Corporate Culture in Tesco, Britain’s Largest Supermarket.” Oral History 43, no. 1 (2015): 52–62.Google Scholar
Durepos, Gabrielle, Mills, Albert J., and Mills, Jean Helms. “Tales in the Manufacture of Knowledge: Writing a Company History of Pan American World Airways.” Management & Organizational History 3, no. 1 (February 2008): 63–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Freund, Alexander, and Quilici, Laura. “Exploring Myths in Women’s Narratives: Italian and German Immigrant Women in Vancouver, 1947–1961.” B.C. Studies 105, no. 6 (1995): 159–182.Google Scholar
Friedel, Tracy L. “(Not so) Crude Text and Images: Staging Native in ‘Big Oil’ Advertising.” Visual Studies 23, no. 3 (December 2008): 238–254.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hansen, Per H. “Business History: A Cultural and Narrative Approach.” Business History Review 86 (Winter 2012): 693–717.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
K’Meyer, Tracy E., and Crothers, A. Glenn. “‘If I See Some of This In Writing, I’m Going to Shoot You’: Reluctant Narrators, Taboo Topics, and the Ethical Dilemmas of the Oral Historian.” Oral History Review 34, no. 1 (2007): 71–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kobrak, Christopher, and Schneider, Andrea. “Varieties of Business History: Subject and Methods for the Twenty-First century.” Business History 53, no. 3 (June 2011): 401–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kroeze, Ronald, and Keulen, Sjoerd. “Leading a Multinational is History in Practice: The Use of Invented Traditions and Narratives at AkzoNobel, Shell, Philips and ABN AMRO.” Business History 55, no. 8 (2013): 1265–1287.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Layman, Lenore. “Reticence in Oral History Interviews.” Oral History Review 36, no. 2 (2009): 207–230.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Levis, Nicholas. “Memory and Liability.” In Working for the Enemy: Ford, General Motors, and Forced Labor in Germany during the Second World War, edited by Billstein, Reinhold, Fings, Karola, Kugler, Anita, and Levis, Nicholas, 229–247. New York: Berghahn Books, 2000.Google Scholar
Maclean, Mairi, Harvey, Charles, and Stringfellow, Lindsay. “Narrative, Metaphor and the Subjective Understanding of Historic Identity Transition.” Business History 59, no. 8 (2017): 1218–1241.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Passerini, Luisa. “Memories between Silence and Oblivion.” In Contested Pasts: The Politics of Memory, edited by Hodgkin, Katharine and Radstone, Susannah, 238–254. London: Routledge, 2003.Google Scholar
Rajak, Dinah. “Corporate Memory: Historical Revisionism, Legitimation and the Invention of Tradition in a Multinational Mining Company.” Political and Legal Anthropology Review 37, no. 2 (November2014): 259–280.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sheftel, Anna, and Zembrzycki, Stacey. “Only Human: A Reflection on the Ethical and Methodological Challenges of Working with ‘Difficult’ Stories.” Oral History Review 37, no. 2 (2010): 191–214.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shopes, Linda. “‘Insights and Oversights’: Reflections on the Documentary Tradition and the Theoretical Turn in Oral History.” Oral History Review 41, no. 2 (2014): 257–268.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thomson, Alistair. “Four Paradigm Transformations in Oral History.” Oral History Review 34, no. 1 (2007): 49–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada: Calls to Action. Winnipeg, Manitoba: Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, 2015. (http://nctr.ca/assets/reports/Calls_to_Action_English2.pdf).Google Scholar
van den Bersselaar, Dmitri. “‘Doorway to Success?’: Reconstructing African Careers in European Business from Company House Magazines and Oral History Interviews.” History in Africa 38, no. 1 (January 2011): 257–294.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
von Plato, Alexander. “Contemporary Witnesses and the Historical Profession: Remembrance, Communicative Transmission, and Collective Memory in Qualitative History.” Oral History Forum d’histoire orale 29 (2009): 1–27.Google Scholar
von Plato, Alexander, and Freund, Alexander. “Part 8: The German Approach to Oral History II.” Oral History Forum d’histoire orale 29 (2009). http://www.oralhistoryforum.ca/index.php/ohf/article/view/58Google Scholar
Wood, W. J. “The Petroleum Industry Oral History Project.” Oral History Forum d’histoire orale 8 (1985): 24–31.Google Scholar
Yow, Valerie. “‘Do I Like Them Too Much?’: Effects of the Oral History Interview on the Interviewer and Vice-Versa.” Oral History Review 24, no. 1 (Summer 1997): 55–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Frankfurter Allgemeine SonntagszeitungGoogle Scholar
The Globe and MailGoogle Scholar
Petroleum History Society, Calgary, AlbertaGoogle Scholar