Revisiting a pioneer : the Libyan Jihad oral history centre

Abstract

A visit to the Jihad Centre for Historical Studies in Tripoli turned out to be a remarkable experience in the daily workings of one of the first historical institutions that made oral history its principal research activity. Modern oral history, as a method, research discipline, and alternative historical approach, found a fecund terrain in Libya, where oral tradition and the verbal arts pervaded popular culture as a mode of social negotiation and intra-generational transmission of knowledge. With its foundation in 1978, the Oral History Centre in Tripoli, became one of the earliest research institutions in the world to recognize the value of oral history in the construction of a “people’s history” (taken in a populist sense) and use it as a unique means to reclaim indigenous memories of a past anti-colonial resistance which had been either neglected or suppressed by official history. Straight away, this research centre became a point of gravitation for individual Libyan historians but also for other scholars from neighboring countries. It also became a catalyst for the spread and popularization of oral history practice in North Africa, by providing assistance in the teaching of oral history and in the launching of similar projects.