Communities of Memory the 17th National conference of the Oral History Assocation of Australia (OHAA) will be held from Friday 7 October 2011 through to Sunday 9 October 2011 in Melbourne with a number of pre-conference events held on Thursday 6 October 2011.  Through its conferences, the OHAA seeks to also promote Oral History and the work of Oral historians to the wider community and to develop close ties with other organisations and groups with common interests and concerns.


The Organising Committee overseeing the conference program includes representatives from the OHAA (Victorian Branch) together with a number of professional historians, academics and postgraduate students and representatives from major cultural and government institutions.

The 2011 conference theme is ‘Communities of Memory’

In recent years memory has been an increasingly significant resource for many different types of communities: for survivors of natural catastrophe and human-made disaster; in country towns dealing with demographic and environmental change; for cities and suburbs in constant transformation; in the preservation of special places or the restitution of human rights; for the ‘Forgotten Australians’ and ‘Stolen Generations’; for migrants and refugees creating new lives; among virtual communities sharing life stories online. Memories are used to foster common identity and purpose, to recover hidden histories and silenced stories, to recall change in the past and advocate change in the present, to challenge stereotypes and speak truth to power. The concept of ‘community’ can be enlisted for change or conservatism; ‘communities of memory’ can be inclusive and empowering, or exclusive and silencing.

Oral historians, in a variety of guises and combining age-old listening skills with dazzling new technologies, play important roles in this memory work. Our conference includes participants who use oral history in their work with and within communities of memory across the many fields and disciplines that contribute to community, public and academic histories.

The Oral History Association is the peak professional body for oral historians working in Australia and was formed in 1978. There are branches in each state. 
The 2011 conference is organised by the Victorian Chapter of the Oral History Association