The Chinese Jamaican Oral History Project in the Oral History Review Blog!

Source: the Oral History Review‘s Twitter profile

We are incredibly honored and excited to be able to share the news that project coordinator Daniel Clarkson Fisher has written a blog post about the Chinese Jamaican Oral History Project at the invitation of the Oral History Review — “the U.S. journal of record for the theory and practice of oral history.”

Dr. Janneken Smucker, the digital editor of the Oral History Review, describes the contribution this way: “Oral history provides the opportunity to explore intersubjectivity and positionality. Here, Daniel Clarkson Fisher shares his work with the Chinese Jamaican Oral History Project centered in Toronto. The moving video excerpts from interviews below demonstrate shared authority in practice.”

Check out the whole post, including those video excerpts, right here.

WE’RE LIVE!!!

CJOHP.org is officially live! Please have a look and give a listen.

Our first group of narrators includes:

You can see each narrator’s portrait and listen to their interview by clicking on their name.

In addition, please do take a look at our interactive timeline and additional resources page, and follow us on social media.

PRESS RELEASE: The Chinese Jamaican Oral History Project Will Launch Its Website and a Digital Storytelling Exhibit at Ryerson University During the 2019 DocNow Festival

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Daniel Clarkson Fisher (daniel.c.fisher@ryerson.ca)

The Chinese Jamaican Oral History Project Will Launch Its Website and a Digital Storytelling Exhibit at Ryerson University During the 2019 DocNow Festival

TORONTO, May 23, 2019 – The Chinese Jamaican Oral History Project, a new initiative that aims to record and preserve stories from the Chinese Jamaican community in Toronto, will launch an interactive website (CJOHP.org) and a digital storytelling exhibit in June. These events are part of DocNow 2019, a documentary festival featuring innovative work from students in Ryerson University’s Master of Fine Arts (MFA) in Documentary Media program.

An opening reception will take place on Wednesday, June 19th, from 6:00 – 9:00 pm, at the Image Factory (IMA 324) in Ryerson’s School of Image Arts building (122 Bond Street). The public is invited to attend, and can RSVP at https://bit.ly/2YJgrDE. The exhibit will also run in the Image Factory until June 30th.

“This project began with the vision of the late, great Chinese Jamaican photographer Ray Chen,” says Daniel Clarkson Fisher, the MFA candidate behind the project. “In the fall of 2015, he tried to organize an oral history project with a group of interested parties from within the community, including my partner Stephanie Lyn. After Ray died, though, the project seemed to as well.” However, when Fisher was accepted into the Documentary Media program, he saw an opportunity to revive it. “Stephanie and I always had a lot of faith in Ray’s idea, and when I got into the MFA program I saw that it offered many of the things that were needed to make it a reality: time, equipment, supervision, etc. So I jumped at the chance to get things going. And I like to think Ray would see the work that’s been done as a very solid start toward his vision.”

CJOHP.org is Going to the 6th Emerging Scholars Symposium on Oral History, Digital Storytelling, and Creative Practice

We’ve just received word that managing editor Daniel Clarkson Fisher’s proposal was accepted, and he’ll be presenting at the 6th Emerging Scholars Symposium on Oral History, Digital Storytelling, and Creative Practice at Concordia University’s Centre for Oral History and Digital Storytelling!

Danny will present about not only the project, but also the major ethical challenge of representation that he has faced in working on it. “As a white man who has married into [this] community, but is not of it, I am approaching this subject as an outsider,” he writes in his proposal. “As such, I have had to devise strategies that reflect my affinity with [oral historian] Jan L. Peterson, who has said that ‘in terms of White researchers researching across differences, letting go of prior notions of who and what defines research; questioning choices that are made regarding research design and analysis; and interrogating White privilege, biases, and assumptions we bring to the process are all critical to transformational research that seeks to improve human conditions.'” [1]

Danny will present with other emerging scholars in Montreal on March 22nd. For more information about the symposium, visit this page on the Centre for Oral History and Digital Storytelling’s official website.

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  1. Jan L. Peterson, “The Intersection of Oral History and the Role of White Researchers in Cross-Cultural Contexts,” Educational Foundations 22, nos. 3-4: 50.

Welcome to CJOHP.org!

Welcome to CJOHP.org: The Chinese Jamaican Oral History Project!

We are an initiative that seeks to document and preserve Chinese Jamaican voices from around the world. The managing editor (for the time being) is Daniel Clarkson Fisher, and the project was created and produced in the Documentary Media Program (MFA), Ryerson University, 2019. For more background, please check out our “About” page (still under construction).

Although some material is now being posted in this space, the website does not officially launch until June. You can, however:

Thank you for visiting, and we hope you’ll connect with and keep on eye on the project!