Quite Voices and Silent Houses: Video ethnography on Inishark

Summary

Video interviews, oral histories and historical records provide an important means of reconstructing past island lifeways.  In this presentation we illustrate how the Cultural Landscapes of the Irish Coast project employs video ethnography to document 1940-1960 island life.  Over the summers of 2009-2012 we conducted multiple video interviews with five islanders while revisiting Inishark, conducting on-camera interviews in their homes that were abandoned 50 years ago, and having them discuss the spatial organization within and around the houses they lived in. This presentation will include showing of a 15 minute video illustrating some of the island interviews and considers how the voices and memories of islanders helps archaeologists interpret and understand the material residues of human practice 50 years later.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Hidden Island Histories: Narratives of Transformation, Emigration and Interaction within 18-20th Century Irish Coastal Communities   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2013

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 695