Oral History And Overseas Chinese Studies

Oral history in the modern sense originated in the 1940 s and has a history of nearly 80 years.Since its introduction into China in the1980 s,the study of oral history in various fields has become a hot trend.The overseas Chinese as a Special Group in China,Its history have been researched for more than one hundred years and have been made fruitful achievements.With the increasingly extensive interdisciplinary application of oral history,scholars of overseas Chinese studies are also actively exploring the application of oral history to overseas Chinese studies,but compared with other groups such as women,veterans of the war of resistance against Japan,the application of oral history is still weak.As the oral history works of returned overseas Chinese published at the beginning of the 21 st century,"Oral History of Returned Overseas Chinese" Series has collected more than 400 oral history materials of returned overseas Chinese from 11 provinces,which is making a great significance to the study of overseas Chinese community and oral history.Based onthe detailed analysis of the series,this paper investigates the significance of the study of overseas Chinese oral history in the two fields of oral history and overseas Chinese community,and promotes the relevant scholars to pay attention to the theoretical and practical exploration of overseas Chinese oral history.This paper is divided into five parts.The introduction mainly introduces the background and significance of the topic,research status,research methods,innovation and limitations.The first chapter elaborates the academic origin of the overseas Chinese oral history,mainly from the booming development of the oral history and the urgent need of the overseas Chinese history research,reveals the feasibility and inevitability of the application of the oral history to the overseas Chinese community research,and points out some existing problems in the current overseas Chinese oral history research.Chapter two and chapter three are the key contents of this paper,focusing on the background,content,value and limitations of "Oral History of Returned Overseas Chinese" Series,so as to show the uniqueness of the oral history in the research materials,perspectives and practical needs of returned overseas Chinese.The fourth chapter discusses the significance of overseas Chinese oral history research,and then to the conclusion of the oral history and overseas Chinese community research in two areas of cooperation,to promote scholars in the theory and practice of overseas Chinese oral history activelyexplore,so as to promote the depth development of overseas Chinese community research and oral history research.