Oral History Australia and Oral History Victoria will present the 2024 OHA Biennial Conference in the the historic and culturally-rich city of Naarm/Melbourne.

About the conference

Our conference theme ‘The Power of Oral History—Risks, Rewards & Possibilities’ taps into the many powerful features of oral history practice including the potential to evoke powerful emotions, bring forth new voices and engage new audiences through multimedia.

Our conference welcomes participants who use oral history in their work across the many fields and disciplines that contribute to community, professional and academic histories. We welcome presenters from Victoria and around Australia, from across the Tasman and throughout the oral history world, from First Nations and culturally diverse backgrounds. We seek to showcase individual presentations, workshops, performances, roundtables, and thematic panels.

Keynote speaker

Our keynote speakers include the legendary Alessandro Portelli. Over more than 50 years, Alessandro  has been one of the most influential oral historians in the world. His keynote is titled ‘Bread and Labor: The Lost and Found Humanity of Giuseppe Di Porto, Auschswitz Survivor. A twice-told tale.’.

Find out more on our conference website – https://oralhistoryaustralia.org.au/biennial-conference-2024/.

The AHA Executive has advised the next annual AHA Conference will be held in Townsville from Monday 30 June to Thursday 3 July 2025. Please save the dates.

The AHA 2025 annual conference will chaired by Ben Jones (CQU) and Koen Stapelbroek (JCU).

The AHA Executive has advised the next annual AHA Conference will be held in Townsville from Monday 30 June to Thursday 3 July 2025. Please save the dates.

The AHA 2025 annual conference will chaired by Ben Jones (CQU) and Koen Stapelbroek (JCU).

The 23rd International Oral History Association (IOHA) Conference is scheduled for Kraków, Poland from 16-19 September 2025.

The theme of the conference is Re-Thinking Oral History.

Biennial conferences of the International Oral History Association (IOHA) allow for reviewing the global conditions and problems of oral history, regardless of the actual conference theme. This time, however, the organizers of the 23^rd IOHA Conference call on oral historians worldwide to consciously rethink the idea and practice of their discipline.

Oral history today faces both old and new challenges with long-lasting and unpredictable consequences: the crisis of liberal democracy, growing tensions in international politics, climate change with its devastating outcomes on human life, increasing inequalities, wars, and mass migrations. All of the foregoing not only affect the conditions in which oral history is made, but also compels us to rethink its very aim. For Central and Eastern Europe, the full-scale Russian aggression in Ukraine beginning in February 2022 and its consequences are an especially painful reminder of that. Though oral history was, and still is a part of history, it has always been conscious of the responsibility (oral) history has for the current society. Aware of that mission, we encourage the global oral history community to return to the core questions of our practice: what kind of histories should we tell and pass on to the current and future generation

Find out more about the conference at: https://ioha2025.conference.pl/.

See the Call for Papers – https://ioha2025.conference.pl/en/call-for-papers. The deadline for proposal submissions was 31 August 2024.