How to Make Subjectivity Your Friend and Not Your Enemy: Reflections on Writing with and Through the “Authorial Self”

Abstract

This chapter examines the question of the subjectivity of the researcher in oral history work. Considering a recent turn towards reflecting on the position of the historian in the context of decolonisation—both in the East European context and beyond—it proposes that open and critical consideration of the conscious, unconscious and semi-conscious decisions of the oral history interviewer can improve our understanding of the memories of interviewees, and thus also of the historical context that they describe. In particular, the chapter probes the importance of reflecting on the ‘authorial self’ - and does so in relation to the author’s recent work of Soviet hippies - and on the challenges and opportunities of being a Western historian researching late-socialist subculture. It argues that “radical transparency” over the subjectivity of the researcher greatly enhances the process of writing about history and memory and is a prerequisite for writing ‘honest’ history that will always remain biased but expose the conditions in which the authorial subjectivity has been shaped.