This resource list was compiled from OHL Director Ricia Anne Chansky’s essay, “Oral History and the Climate Crisis: Listening in the Aftermath of Disaster,” which was published in 2024 in the Oral History Review and received the Oral History Association Article Award in 2025. This essay explains how oral history and storytelling projects for social and climate justice developed at UPRM in the aftermath of Hurricane María, ultimately leading to the creation of the Oral History Lab. It also discusses the potential uses of oral history as qualitative, community-based data sets and argues that post-disaster narratives have essential information for members of frontline communities and the policymakers, responders, and researchers who are making decisions that directly impact these communities. This is by no means an exhaustive list of sources, but it does provide entry points into the discussion on crisis oral history and disaster.
Esta lista de recursos fue compilada a partir del ensayo de la directora del OHL, Ricia Anne Chansky, titulado “Oral History and the Climate Crisis: Listening in the Aftermath of Disaster,” publicado en 2024 en Oral History Review y galardonado con el Premio al Mejor Artículo de la Oral History Association en 2025. Este ensayo explica cómo los proyectos de historia oral y narración enfocados en la justicia social y climática se desarrollaron en la UPRM tras el paso del huracán María, lo que finalmente condujo a la creación del Laboratorio de Historia Oral. También analiza los posibles usos de la historia oral como conjuntos de datos cualitativos basados en la comunidad y sostiene que las narrativas posteriores a los desastres contienen información esencial para los miembros de las comunidades de primera línea, así como para los responsables de formular políticas públicas, los equipos de respuesta y los investigadores que toman decisiones que impactan directamente a estas comunidades. Esta no pretende ser una lista exhaustiva de fuentes, pero sí ofrece puntos de partida para la discusión sobre la historia oral en contextos de crisis y desastre.
Reading list / Lista de lectura
- “About Climate Stories Project.” Climate Stories Project. https://www.climatestoriesproject.org/about.html.
- Archivo de Respuestas Emergencias de Puerto Rico, a digital archiving project collaboratively undertaken by UPR-Mayagüez, UPR-Río Piedras, and Michigan State University. https://arepr.org/.
- “Caribbean Oral History.” Southeast Climate Adaptation Science Center. https://secasc.ncsu.edu/resources/caribbean-oral-history/.
- Cave, Mark and Stephen M. Sloan, eds. Listening on the Edge: Oral History in the Aftermath of Crisis. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2014. https://global.oup.com/academic/product/listening-on-the-edge-9780199859306.
- Chansky, Ricia Anne. “Teaching Hurricane María: Disaster Pedagogy and the Ugly Auto/Biography.” Pedagogy, 19.1 (2019): 1–23. https://doi.org/10.1215/15314200-7173718.
- Chansky, Ricia Anne, Edward Contreras Santiago, Fernando Correa González, Marci Denesiuk, Jocelyn Géliga Vargas, and Catherine Mazak, “I is for Agency: Education, Social Justice, and Auto/Biographical Practices,” Revista Brasileira de Pesquisa (Auto)Biográfica 3.8 (2018): 416–440. http://www.revistas.uneb.br/index.php/rbpab/article/view/5341.
- Chansky, Ricia Anne and Marci Denesiuk, eds. Mi María: Surviving the Storm, Voices from Puerto Rico, Voice of Witness. Chicago, IL: Haymarket Books, 2021. https://voiceofwitness.org/books/mi-maria-surviving-the-storm/.
- Chansky Ricia Anne, Katrina M. Powell, and Đào X. Trần, “A Necessary Tension: Editors, Editing, and Oral History for Social Justice,” Oral History Review 48.2 (2021): 258–72. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00940798.2021.1942932.
- Clark, Mary Marshall. “Case Study: Field Notes on Catastrophe: Reflections on the September 11, 2001, Oral History Memory and Narrative Project,” in The Oxford Handbook of Oral History, ed. Donald A. Ritchie. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2012. 255–64.6. https://academic.oup.com/edited-volume/28246.
- Clark, Mary Marshall, Peter Bearman, Catherine Ellis, and Stephen Drury Smith, eds. After the Fall: New Yorkers Remember September 2001 and the Years the Followed. New York: The New Press, 2011. https://thenewpress.org/books/after-the-fall/?v=eb65bcceaa5f.
- “Climates of Inequality.” Climates of Inequality curated by the Humanities Action Lab. https://www.climatesofinequality.org/.
- Cramer, Jennifer Abraham. “Oral History in Disaster Zones.” Interview by Caitlin Tyler-Richards. OUPblog, Oxford UP. https://blog.oup.com/2012/12/oral-history-in-disaster-zones/.
- Favretti, Maggie. Learning in the Age of Climate Disasters. London: Routledge, 2022. https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/mono/10.4324/9781003215806/learning-age-climate-disasters-maggie-favretti.
- Fremion, Brittany B. and Marian Matyn, “Michigan’s PBB Disaster: Finding New Ways to Commemorate Large-Scale Environmental Disasters,” Public Historian 45.2 (May 2023): 67–86. https://online.ucpress.edu/tph/article-abstract/45/2/67/195986/Michigan-s-PBB-DisasterFinding-New-Ways-to?redirectedFrom=fulltext.
- Girdharry, Kristi. “Organizational Sponsorship: An Ethical Framework for Community Oral History Projects,” Oral History Review 48.2 (2021): 246–57. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00940798.2021.1927765.
- Graham, Molly. “Introduction to NOAA’s Voices Oral History Archives.” YouTube, uploaded by NOAA Office of National Marine Sanctuaries. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBWWUYF3HLc.
- Horowitz, Andy and Liz Skilton, “‘Disasters Have Histories’: Teaching and Researching American Disasters,” interview by Chad H. Parker, Organization of American Historians. https://www.oah.org/tah/february-4/disasters-of-histories-teaching-and-researching-american-disasters/.
- The Humanities Action Lab at Hunter College School of Arts and Sciences, CUNY. https://www.humanitiesactionlab.org/.
- Hunter-Pillion, Melody. “Oral Histories Battling Climate Change.” History@Work (blog), National Council on Public History. https://ncph.org/history-at-work/tag/climate-change/.
- Mayotte, Cliff, editor. The Power of the Story: The Voice of Witness Teacher’s Guide to Oral History. 2nd ed., Voice of Witness, 2013. Zinn Education Project. https://www.zinnedproject.org/materials/power-of-the-story/.
- “Mi María: Surviving the Storm, Voices from Puerto Rico Curriculum,” Voice of Witness, https://voiceofwitness.org/resources/mi-maria-download-curriculum/.
- Perkiss, Abigail. “Learning from Disaster.” OUPblog, Oxford University Press. https://blog.oup.com/2017/01/natural-disaster-oral-history/.
- Perkiss, Abigail. “Staring Out to Sea and the Transformative Power of Oral History for Undergraduate Interviewers.” Oral History Review, 43.2 (June 2016): 392–407. https://www.jstor.org/stable/26427589.
- Piercy, Lindsey. “UK Oral History Project Documenting Climate Change, Empowering Kentuckians.” College of Arts & Sciences, University of Kentucky. https://www.as.uky.edu/uk-oral-history-project-documenting-climate-change-empowering-kentuckians.
- Rose Smith, Jen. “Word of Mouth: Oral Histories of Climate Change Provide an Intimate View of Our Shifting World,” Sierra: The Magazine of the Sierra Club, April 5, 2023, https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/1-spring/critic-s-notebook/word-mouth.
- Sánchez Silva, Yaritza, and Bryan Ramos Romero. “Eating Through Disaster: Food Insecurity in Puerto Rico.” Climates of Inequality, Humanities Action Lab, https://climatesofinequality.org/project/eating-through-disaster-food-insecurity-in-puerto-rico/.
- Skilton, Liz. “The Recent Louisiana Disasters Oral History Project.” https://www.lizskilton.com/the-recent-louisiana-disasters-oral-history-project.
- Skilton, Liz. Tempest: Hurricane Naming and American Culture. Louisiana State University Press, 2023. https://lsupress.org/9780807179963/tempest/.
- Sloan, Stephen M. “Oral History and Hurricane Katrina: Reflections on Shouts and Silences.” Oral History Review, 35.2 (2008): 176–186. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1093/ohr/ohn027.
- Sloan, Stephen M. and Mark Cave. Oral History and the Environment: Global Perspectives on Climate, Connection, and Catastrophe. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2022. https://global.oup.com/academic/product/oral-history-and-the-environment-9780190684976?cc=pr&lang=en&.
- Weaver, Stewart, Tatyana Bakmetyeva, and Daniel Wayne Rinn, “Climate Witness: Oral Environmental History and Community-Based Research—A Case Study from Trans-Himalayan India,” Oral History Review 49.1 (2022): 56–76. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00940798.2022.2038016.
- Whitlock, Gillian. “In the Second Person: Narrative Transactions in Stolen Generations Testimony.” Biography, 24.1 (2001): 197–214. Project MUSE, https://dx.doi.org/10.1353/bio.2001.0026.