National seminar on "Oral History and Traditions - Potential and Prospects - with special reference to Maharashtra and Deccan Culture" Organised by R C Dhere Centre for Cultural Studies, Pune 9 - 10, March, 2019 Village Oral history - as a Cultural Text: A Case study of Visnur N. Bhakthavathsala Reddy 1. Preamble The "Oral history is a well established pracce within the academy, enjoying wide acceptance as an archival pracce, research method, pedagogical tool, and means of community service and public scholarship. Yet as a field it remains underdeveloped" 1 . Oral history against the wish of tradional historians was developed as an archival pracce inially giving much importance to its audio - visual documentaon and preservaon. Later on due to its impact in the field, the tradional historians were forced to accept it as part of the History. On analysing the definions of Oral history, explained by various instuons who indulge in oral history recordings, it is possible to idenfy few contradicng or aspects of non correlaon. Among them the following concepts are worth to be menoned. A History and Social history 'The tradional historians strongly believe that 'history' is a reconstrucon of past with documentary record…. no documents, no history' 2 . But 'During 1948 'Nevins came up with the idea of conducng interviews with parcipants in recent history to supplement the wrien record' 3 which is a deviaon from the tradion of history. Of course these interviews were done with "elite" group. Later on more scholars, instuons, and archives came forward to conduct interviews on various aspects including oral history. By then it was developed or treated mostly as an archival pracce to preserve for future generaon. 1 Concluding remarks of Linda Shopes, Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission; (Mellon Paper with appendix), a background paper on Oral History, for Mellon Project on Folklore, Ethnomusicology, and Oral History in the Academy, submitted to the Oral History Association, America. Pp.23 2 "C.V. Langlois and Charles Seignobos, two nineteenth century French historians put it: The historian works with documents….There is no substitute for documents: no documents, no history" as quoted by Linda Shopes. 3 As quoted by Linda Shopes in Mellon paper, pp.4 and 5