Content and Context: Connecting Oral History and Social History in Solomon Islands
Creators: name: Chevalier, Christopher
Publisher: name: The Australian National University
Year: 2021

description: 'When a person dies, a library is lost' is an adage in oral history that underpins and motivates this thesis. Not only is personal history lost but also social history. This thesis explores the use of oral history methods to record personal and professional histories in Solomon Islands and to recover post-war social history that might otherwise be lost or forgotten. The thesis presents the life histories and oral testimonies of 27 Islanders and seven expatriates who lived and worked in Solomon Islands during the colonial and independence eras, and relates their experiences to the post-war social history of Solomon Islands. The life histories and oral testimonies are presented in three collective case studies. The first case study includes four individuals (two indigenous and two expatriate) who were prominent in Solomon Islands government and civil society. The second case study includes five Australian missionary nurses and relates to their recollections of their work at Fauabu hospital on Malaita from 1968 to 1984. The third case study records the career histories of 25 nurses who trained during the colonial era and became nursing officers after Solomon Islands achieved Independence in 1978. The interview narratives were summarised and supplemented with other source materials to produce individual, group and collective histories. These histories illuminate multiple connections, changes and continuities in Solomon Islands since the Pacific War ended in 1945. The thesis presents a new model of oral history methodology in six 'domains' (visual, spatial, oral-aural, textual, numerical and digital) covering three phases of oral history: primary (recording and collection), secondary (curating and processing), and tertiary (analysis and interpretation). I also develop a social history framework which enables individual and group lives to be situated within their wider social, historical and geographical contexts, and viewed from the micro (personal and group), meso (social, institutional and cultural) and macro (national and international) perspectives. The thesis examines literature from oral history, social history and sociology in particular, C. Wright Mills' Sociological Imagination (1959) and R.W. Connell's Southern Theory (2007). I also draw on, and draw attention to, Solomon Islands history and anthropology, and decolonisation of Pacific history and research. Pacific scholars such as Tracey Banivanua Mar, David Gegeo, Kabini Sanga, Linda Tuhiwai Smith and Teresia Teaiwa argue that Pacific history and research by outsiders often ignore or diminish Indigenous history and peoples. Decolonising oral history methods requires methods and protocols that are culturally appropriate and the engagement of Indigenous people in all phases of the research process. However well-intentioned outsiders might be, using oral history methods in academic research can recolonise (or neocolonise) Pacific oral history by adopting hegemonic academic methodologies and protocols. The contributions made by this thesis fall into three categories. Firstly, it collects individual and collective histories and illuminates multiple levels and contexts of social history in post-war Solomon Islands. Secondly, it contributes to the history of nursing and medical services, revealing the extent to which they have been shaped by the colonial legacy, as well as the extent to which they continue to be influenced by international agencies in the post-independence era. Thirdly, it presents two heuristics, a conceptual model of oral history and a social history framework, that bring clarity and coherence to the complexities of oral history research and to the social history of Solomon Islands.