Walking Books? The Oral History Method at The Hong Kong Heritage Project

Abstract

What role can oral history play in business archives and in public history contexts in Hong Kong today? This article addresses the work of The Hong Kong Heritage Project (HKHP), a major business archive and soon-to-be museum and its work in collecting and recording oral histories since 2007. It situates the work of HKHP within the wider Hong Kong cultural context and investigates the methodologies used by the project to record 530 oral history interviews, the largest collection of oral histories held by a private cultural institution in Hong Kong. In addition, the article examines the challenges and opportunities of collecting oral history in a for-profit environment and the application and uses of oral history in exhibition contexts as a tool to foster audience engagement as well as to encourage understanding and empathy for history as well as other people.