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ing life around the Portobello area, isboth timely and poignant. The stories
capture many aspects of the uniquecharacter of the market at an important crossroads on the timeline of thisLondon institution, whilst being avaluable record for the future. The
introduction provides historical andsocial contexts about the area and theemergence of the market, anddescribes how the myth of the market
has been created through fiction andfilm. Historical photographs and black
and white images of the interviewees
add visual references. Each chapter
focusses on an individual narrative,
many of which were collected frompeople whose families have been connected with the market or local areafor generations. The stories weave inand out of one another, together creating an intricate and complex picture,
the central thread of which is Portobello market.
The themes that emerge from theseoral histories are sometimes expanded,elaborated on or contradicted by othernarratives, creating a clamour of differing voices, each with its own resonances. As well as insights into specifictrades, the personal stories provide fascinating and unexpected insights into
individual lives, taking the narratives
off on surprising tangents and revealing insights around personal motivations and private passions.
The accounts enable us to glean an
insider’s view of the market game.
Firstly the world of antiques dealers
and traders, who appear like theirwares to originate from a differentperiod. Their stories illuminate therealm of these autodidacts, providing
fascinating insights and memories
about their lives as well as details about
how they become dealers. We are also
provided with insider knowledge of theantiques trade, the auction rooms, theknocks, rings and cuts, and given aglimpse into a precarious way of life
where dealers appear to be as passionate about objects from the past as they
are about buying and selling them.
These descriptions are at times aremarkable reflection of a by-gone eraof historic house sales and fantastic
things, as well as an uncertainty about
the future. Throughout, there are theubiquitous fisherman’s tales about the
big ones that got away, or the extraordinary finds and the money that there
was to be made.

Then there is the strange breed whocall themselves collectors. ‘What
makes a collector? It’s a disease’, muses
Reuben, an antiques dealer and collector. Their tales are about how people
and objects ‘find each other’ in the market. Whilst collectors appear to be titillated by the chase as well as the huntingof their quarry, they are also obsessive
and compulsive about what they collect. A visit to the home of collectors
Tim and Todd is revealing and evocative, showing the power of the narrators to describe and interact with theircollections, enabling us to picture theirhouse through our mind’s eye.
Into this eclectic mix of stories isadded those of the costermongers, whosell fresh fruit and vegetables on theirmarket stalls between Elgin Crescentand Talbot Road. Many of the costermongers are from local families who
have worked, traded and virtually ruled
the market for generations. Theirevocative stories reveal personal struggles to support their families and maintain their livelihoods, as well as thehard graft of their parents and grandparents. There is a real sense of regret
at the loss of a way of life in the face of
new developments, but there is also a
lively immediacy to this section of thebook, as if the recordings were carriedout as Blanche stood by whilst thecostermongers served their customers:‘A couple of plums and a banana
please. Where’s ‘e, in doors?’ In thesechapters we gain some sense of theflavour of the market, as well as anunderstanding of some of the friction

between costermongers, Saturday
traders and the local council. By including differing perspectives, Portobello
Voices juxtaposes these stories withthose of the market inspector or thenewcomers, such as people selling vintage jewellery, clothing or bric-à-brac,
as eager to make money at the market
as generations of traders before them
have done. For those keen to understand the rag trade, there are some useful insights.
Whilst the reader will enjoy being
immersed in each chapter, the bookpresents the narratives as continuous
dialogue, without prompts or questions. We are therefore unable toobserve the interaction between theinterviewer and the interviewee forourselves. The interviewees speak eloquently, but there is no indication
about how much editing or re-writing
has taken place, making it hard to tell
how authentic the voices really are.
Another chance to add further colourand connection with the characterswould have been to add personal orcontextual information about the subjects, such as when they were born ora short biography. It would also havebeen fascinating to hear how Blanche
Girouard came to meet and select her
interviewees. Furthermore, a narrativein relation to the overall journey of theproject is a lost opportunity and would
have added another layer to the book.
The themes of change, loss and thethreat that redevelopment poses recurthroughout the book: ‘When we firststarted, all those shops were all full ofantique arcades… there were no people selling cupcakes’, recalls Geoff,
who works in financial services. Whatever the future of the market may be, in
Portobello Voices Blanche Girouard has
succeeded in capturing the voices of amarket in transition.
■ Sarah Gudgin
ORAL LITERATURE IN THE
DIGITAL AGE: ARCHIVINGORALITY AND CONNECTING
WITH COMMUNITIESMark Turin, Claire Wheeler and Eleanor
Wilkinson (eds)
Cambridge: Open Book Publishers,
2013, 190pp, £15.95, paperback.
This anthology begins with a powerful
epigraph: ‘Only connect… ‘ (p xxiii);
and indeed, connecting has multiple
meanings throughout this work. Whilethe editors refer primarily to the digital112 ORAL HISTORY Autumn 2014

world in which we live and their goal of
sharing oral literature – including ritualtexts, curative chants, epic poems, folk
tales, creation stories, songs, myths,
spells, legends, proverbs, riddles,
tongue-twisters, recitations and historical narratives – in print, oral, and digital formats; connectivity, as a theme,runs much deeper. Although this is ananthropological collection and the contributors are thereby rooted in thatfield and devoted to preserving therapidly disappearing oral literature ofindigenous communities throughout
the world, there is much that oral historians can take away from this conversation. Best practices for building
trust as well as sustained relationships
with those with whom we work – andthe ethical, methodological and practical issues that we must consider whensharing interviewees’ stories and ournarratives about them – provide new
vantage points from which we may
review our approaches to the craft.
Most importantly, connectivity is a priority when it comes to disseminationand is certainly an issue to which we
can all relate. How can we get stories –or in this case oral literature – out tovarious publics?
This book is the second volume toappear in Open Book Publishers’‘World Oral Literature’ series, which isa joint initiative with the World Oral
Literature Project (see www.oralliterature.org), and thus the editors haveensured that it will be easily accessedby practitioners and communities. In
addition to supplementing the collection with online extras, the volume may
be purchased, but is also freely available on the publishers’ website(www.openbookpublishers.com). This
commitment to using traditional publishing routes to make indigenous cultures accessible is an interesting framework that ought to be explored by oral
historians.
The collection is divided into two
sections: ‘Principles and methods ofarchiving and conservation’ and‘Engagements and reflections from thefield’. Although the first section issomewhat technical in nature and discipline-specific, focused on creating
digital tools that may be used to document and archive endangered languages, these anthropologists shareconcerns that are similar to those oforal historians. Thomas Widlock andDavid Nathan, for instance, ask how

we may create digital archives and documentation tools for oral literature
while respecting and acknowledging
the qualitative relationships and collaborative partnerships that have gone
into their collection. For them, transparency and a willingness on the partof researchers to take the time todevelop metadata – layers of knowledge that detail the content as much as
the process for future listeners – arethe key. That said, they remind us that
there will always be problems whenusing the digital in our work: new technology does not solve old problems.
Rather, it sheds light onto these problems and gives us new approaches forcoming to terms with them. Likewise,

Judith Aston and Paul Matthews buildon this discussion, noting that wemust humanise and assure that thelayers of meaning – which are so pertinent to research – appear in the digital interfaces that result. All of thesecontributors, like the editors themselves, are devoted to finding creative,
accessible and usable digital platforms
that not only close the distance
between users, researchers and thetools used to archive oral literature,
but also continue to connect, fosterand sustain relationships with indigenous communities and those who try
to access their rich and rapidly disappearing cultures. Together, they
remind us of the responsibilities wehave toward the people with whom
we work, an ethical concern thatknows no disciplinary boundaries andcontinues long into the future after
our recorders are turned off.
The second section of the collection
comprises field notes that illuminate
the complexities of language preservation in various indigenous communities in West Africa, the United Statesof America, Ecuador, India and China.
This international and frank discussion enables us to deeply engage with
the important issues that constantly
surface in the field. For instance, thechapter written by Daniela Merolla
and Felix Ameka, in collaboration with
Kofi Dorvlo, focuses on the performativity of peoples’ narratives and theoften unbalanced power relationshipsthat structure the interactions we havewith our interviewees. Although thepiece would have been stronger if theauthors had offered a more detailed
discussion of the troubling ethicaldilemmas they faced when working
with a particular interviewee, theirpiece illuminates the complexities
inherent in negotiating insider/outsider statuses and the choices we must
make when dealing with difficult interviewees. In this case, they ponder thefine line we must walk when presenting a troubling narrative. How can westay true to that narrative without giving voice to a person’s disturbing personal agendas? Madan Meena, in a
related piece that documents her
attempts to record the Tejaji Ballad ofRajasthan, questions whether in commissioning the performance of thisceremony she compromised its
authenticity and jaded the process.
The ways that technology is changing
the tradition is interesting and noteworthy, but does it mean that staying
true to the endangered cultural aspectsof this ballad is impossible? It seems
that connecting and collaborating arecomplicated endeavours that force us
to make choices that always come withconsiderable risks. And yet, theauthors’ transparency and willingness
to discuss their challenges provide
readers with important insights into
the imperfect but necessary efforts
being made to preserve endangeredoral literatures and protect intangible
cultural heritage.
The commitments that the authors,
as well as the World Oral Literature
Project, make to the indigenous communities with which they work is enviable, a model that must be emulated byoral historians. It is essential for source

Autumn 2014 ORAL HISTORY 113

communities to always retain copyrightand intellectual property over recordings of their traditions. These are theirlanguages, their stories. We have anobligation to remain connected to thesecommunities, to give back rather thanmerely take from them. Our research,as this book demonstrates, has agreater impact when we make this kindof commitment.
■ Stacey Zembryzcki
DEDICATED TO GOD: AN ORALHISTORY OF CLOISTERED NUNS
Abbie Reese
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014,
247pp, £22.00, paperback.
Using oral histories and photography,
Abbie Reese invites us to discover andlearn about the lives of a community ofPoor Clare Colettine nuns residing inCorpus Christi Monastery in Rockford,
Illinois. This cloistered order has a long
lineage which begins in Europe in
1212. They arrived in the United Statesin the nineteenth century and today theRockford Poor Clares are one of twelve
extant American Poor Clare Colletine
communities.
CorpusChristiMonastery was founded in 1916 andtwenty nuns now reside there.
Through Reese’s narrative and photographs, and the nuns’ oral histories,
we are allowed a rare opportunity toencounter the members of this enclosed
order of contemplative nuns, glimpsing
their individual pasts and observing
their collective and individual present.
This ethnographic project aims tounderstand why women would enter aform of life that would cut them offfrom the outside world, to make a ‘drastic, lifelong, countercultural decision…
in favor of obscurity’ (p xiii). This is, ofcourse, a typically modern take on cloistered life. The Western world values
extroversion and activity and links these
traits with success and prosperity; thehidden life that the nuns espouse is a bit
suspect to modern sensibilities.
But Reese provides a more nuancedstory. Her project unfolds over six years(2005-2011), in which she interviews
and re-interviews twelve of the twenty
nuns. Reese, a non-Catholic, admits tounderstanding very little about thenuns’ lives in the initial phases of theproject. The relationship between
Reese and the nuns deepens over theyears, and the oral histories are richer
for this evolving trust. The Poor Clares’
involvement suggests the need to makeoutsiders aware of the life they lead,
especially given declining numbers.
Gone are the days of ‘convent-hopping’or ‘nun-runs’ (p 71) and this openness
about their lives is a way of potentiallygaining recruits, but more importantly
leaving a tangible memory of their ‘hidden witness’.
I found the structure of the book initially off-putting, though on further
reflection it echoes the collaboration
between Reese and the nuns. Eachchapter begins with a narrative where
Reese expounds on a particular theme(community life; claustrophobia;monastic living; sacrificing self; agency;
suffering; idealism and reality; erasure)using the oral histories to great effect;and each chapter ends with a three- totwelve-page contribution from one of
the Poor Clares. Though not madeexplicit, this second narrative in eachchapter is derived from Reese’s interviews, reflecting her commitment to‘shared authority’ via co-authorship.
Reese’s striving to understand thePoor Clares’ lives emphasises ‘tending
to the everyday’ (p xv) and thus presenting the ordinariness of contemplative religious life. This work dispels
many of the myths surrounding
women who live cloistered lives: they
are not women who are anti-social,
inordinately shy or running away fromtheir personal lives. Each woman
enters religious life thoughtfully andthey – and the community – have timeto get accustomed to each other during
the postulancy, novitiate and juniorate;
it takes more than six years before theytake their final solemn vows. Theirchildhoods do not fit any set pattern;they are not scrupulously religious
children; and parents are rarely initially enthusiastic about losing theirdaughter to an enclosed existence.
This is not an easy life, and the nuns
are frank with their uncertainties anddifficulties. For some, these concerns
diminish after a time; but for others,
they remain constant companions.
What keeps these women tied to thisunconventional lifestyle is their belief
in their vocation, their relationshipwith God and their confidence that
their life of hidden prayer is powerful,and a means of influencing events in
the greater world (p 5). While outwardly religious life appears uniform,
Reese’s narrative makes it clear thatthese women live their vocation inways that reflect a community way ofliving that still values and accepts theirindividuality.
While I enjoyed this work andfound it thought-provoking, there arequestions that I think could have been
more directly addressed. Reese notesthat in respect to the Poor Clares’ ‘hiddenness’ she has provided pseudonyms, yet she includes photographs ofthe nuns. Surely there are some tensions here that could have been mademore explicit? I enjoyed the photographs; visual representation madethe stories come alive, and despite theuniform habit, the facial expressions
gave a sense of the diversity of thenuns. However, I would have liked tounderstand what Reese intended
methodologically with the photographs. There are small errors intechnical vocabulary. The term ‘novitiate’ is used rather than novice (p 33).
Instead of ‘apostolate’, the term ‘postulate’ (p 8) is used. Reese claims that
all nuns take vows of poverty, chastity
and obedience (p 3), but this should benuanced. Religious women take theseevangelical counsels implicitly, but notalways explicitly.
Those wanting to find some sort ofacademic argument and analytical critique of contemplative religious life will
be disappointed, for this was not what
was intended. Dedicated to God is successful, however, in what it sets out to
do: this book tells important stories
that explain experiences and lendmeaning (p xiv) to the diversity of religious life.
Carmen M Mangion