Oral history in Portugal

Abstract

This article seeks to characterise the rise of the area of oral history in Portugal at the end of the 20th century, a fact to which researchers working in foreign academic contexts and originating from subject areas bordering on history made a contribution. We sketch out the situation of oral history and identify its practices, in which the women, more recent researchers, stand out, including a proportion from outside the academic world. On the basis of an analysis of works published by Paula Godinho, Luísa Tiago de Oliveira and Dalila Cabrita Mateus, some of the possibilities and problems raised by its employment are revealed.