In recent years, interest in oral archives has grown significantly in Japan, and it is now being applied to various types of research and practice. However, when compared to the British Library's National Sound Archives in the United Kingdom and Singapore's Oral History Centre, Japan lags behind in the documentation of human voices as historical reference materials and making them accessible to future generations. There is definitely a need for more such undertakings in Japan.

The Oral Archives Group of this COE Project will research and confirm the existence of oral documentation in Asia and Africa to collect documentation. Simultaneously, from a research perspective, the Group will focus on the Asian region, working through relationships with researchers and institutions outside the region if necessary, to listen and record the voices of a variety of people who lived through the 20th century. In particular, the Group will focus on the "voices that want to speak out" as well as the "voices that don't want to speak out" of ordinary people who lived through the dramatic times of the 20th century.

Specifically, the first step would consist of preliminary research on the institutions that have oral archives and the status of their archives. The Group will work through relationships with various institutions in the focus area to collect information and documentation on oral archives, index the information, and distribute it publicly. Then, while seeking assistance from overseas students studying at TUFS, the Group will actively embark on the collection of oral documentation. The Group will also call upon any individuals, groups or institutions sharing its interests to establish a network.

In the research project including graduate students and young researchers, research and studies will be conducted under the key word, "movement". The focus of research and studies will be 20th century Asian and African areas with core focus on the "movement" of "people, things, and information". The plan is to conduct interviews of people who have lived through such dramatic events as war and revolution (independence) as well as people who have been engaged in trade in a changing environment.

To execute the above plan, it is inevitable to conduct a multi-faceted study of oral archiving. For example, in the methodologies referred to as "oral history" or "life history", various attempts have been made and research conducted in the fields of folklore, history, sociology, and cultural anthropology. "Interviews" and "dictation" conducted in folklore can be defined as a method centered on written documentation with history as a reference point, pursuing the richness and potential of oral dictation documentation. In history, various attempts have also been made from the perspective of "memories of war" and gender. In sociology, it goes without saying that there is an established research history in "oral history" and "life history" approaches.

The Oral Archives Group will take the above diversity of "oral history" into account and endeavour to hold ongoing research workshops by inviting researchers who have utilized oral documentation in their research in various disciplines from both inside and outside TUFS. When collecting oral documentation, the relationship between the interviewer and the interviewee are always challenged and furthermore, we hope to apply the results of our research activities to the actual preservation, preservation method, and publicizing of the "voices".

1. In the first year, the Oral Archives Group will concentrate on understanding the status of oral archiving-namely, the contents of the archived documentation and how the documentation is being made available to the public in Asia (including Japan). We will announce the results of our findings. Afterwards, we will dispatch members of our Group to the various institutions to identify the documentation we may collect and preserve through collaboration and cooperation with those institutions and work towards making them available to the public.

2. The Oral Archives Group is endeavouring to hold reporting workshops on its own research, as well as that of researchers who are interested in and have been utilizing oral archives for their research, on a bi-monthly basis. (We have already held two such workshops.) These workshops are open to students, graduate students, and researchers from both inside and outside TUFS. In parallel with such research activities, the Oral Archives Group endeavours to collaborate with groups who are already focusing on the methodologies and functions of oral archiving to establish a network with them.

3. The Oral Archives Research Project will conduct interviews at designated locations as required, with the aim of promoting research among graduate students and young researchers-working around the key word "movement"-by establishing a detailed action plan. Furthermore, the results of such activities will be announced to the public through announcements and official newsletters. The following is what is planned at present. It is anticipated that the activities will expand in the future.

(1) Interviews will be conducted with people living on the Kathmandu Plateau of Nepal who have been engaged in Nepal-Tibet trade. We will interview many people to hear about their experiences with Tibet to make comparisons between pre-1959 Tibet, before the internal problems, and the period when external trade was re-established in the 1980's. We will tape the interviews and transcribe, translate, and analyze them. (Planned project managers: Purna R. SHAKYA, ISHII)

(2) Interviews will be conducted in Cambodia, Vietnam and other Southeast Asian countries where dramatic changes in the political system have taken place to hear about the changes in the people's perceptions and consciousness regarding their countries and themselves. Specifically, in Cambodia, we plan to interview ordinary women who were born in the same year on an ongoing basis. We are also planning to conduct interviews in Vietnam. (Planned project managers: TERAUCHI, IMAI)

Furthermore, the Group plans to work in collaboration and tandem with the "Bengal Documentation Oral Archive Project" planned by the Central Coordination Committee.