Based on collaborative work with filmmakers and elderly African American community members in a rural Virginia community, this presentation highlights culturally responsive interviewing, collaboration, and the preservation of elders’ voices through video as a valuable archival resource. Reference will be made to the “table conversations” of Baha’i pilgrims—informal yet profound discussions with central figures of the Baha’i Faith during the 1950s in Haifa, Israel. Similar to the process of oral history, the table conversations, or “pilgrim notes,” began as informal spoken exchanges, were later transcribed, and are now preserved and archived as historical documents.
Dr. Angelita D. Reyes is professor emerita in the School of Social Transformation at Arizona State University. Her pivotal work, Mothering Across Cultures: Postcolonial Representations, engages historical inquiry and interdisciplinary humanities to analyze “mothering” as a framework for Black women’s intellectual and cultural traditions in Africa and the African diaspora. Reyes has also edited books and articles on race, class, and gender for social justice. Her articles have appeared in numerous multidisciplinary publications.
Dr. Reyes holds a master’s degree in international education from New York University and a PhD in comparative literature and anthropology from The University of Iowa.
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