Ethical Code for Oral History Netherlands
Oral histories enrich our understanding of historical developments by foregrounding the memories and interpretations of individuals and groups who experienced these events first-hand. They broaden and deepen the context and meaning of written sources and other forms of heritage, including voices that were previously unheard. Owing to the personal and often emotional nature of these narratives, it can be challenging to make oral history interviews openly and sustainably available in an ethical and responsible manner.
The purpose of this Ethical Code for Oral History Netherlands is to advance the further professionalisation of oral history as a discipline and to align its practice within Dutch research institutions and the heritage sector. The Code supports creators, custodians and users of oral history interviews in making choices that strengthen participants’ trust in the respectful handling of their recorded interview, while also enabling interview collections to be made findable, accessible and reusable in a sustainable manner (FAIR). To this end, we set out fifteen principles. We have formulated these principles on the basis of existing ethical codes for oral history from abroad, recent literature, and extensive input from the Dutch oral history community.
This Code does not stand alone. It should be viewed as a supplement to the various ethical professional codes, guidelines and procedures already in use within the communities mentioned above, tailored specifically to the use of oral history as both method and source. As such, the Code also offers an essential reference framework for organisations operating in and around these communities, whose actions indirectly influence projects and processes in which oral history plays a role. Examples include government bodies, training and educational institutions and their Ethics Review Committees, funding organisations that support oral history initiatives, commercial contractors and the creative industries. Those directly involved in such projects and processes are responsible for ensuring that this Code is also brought to the attention of these parties.
The Ethical Code for Oral History Netherlands is a living document. Periodically, the Code needs to be revised due to societal, cultural, and technological developments that influence the ethically responsible creation, preservation and reuse of oral history. Practical application of the Code may likewise reveal the need for amendments. The Oral History Working Group of the Huizinga Institute and Sprekende geschiedenis, the Dutch national oral history hub, have agreed to organise an annual public consultation round to gather feedback from the field, review it with experts, and incorporate any necessary changes into the Code.
There are various definitions of oral history, and none fully captures the breadth of the practice. For the readability and practical applicability of this Code, we provide a definition and scope based on those of the American Oral History Association and oral historian Donald Ritchie:
Oral history is a method for collecting and preserving the memories of individuals and communities about past events through planned interviews. An oral history interview is a joint creation of an interviewer and one or more narrators, in which the interviewer, following thorough preparation, poses questions to the narrator. An audio or video recording is made of this interview.
Recordings that are made covertly or at random, recorded speeches, personal audio or video diaries and other recordings that lack a dialogue between interviewer and narrator do not fall within the scope of oral history.
The interviewer or project leader ensures that the recording is preserved sustainably and, where possible, made findable, accessible and reusable. The same applies to associated documentation, such as a transcript, a summary and consent forms provided by narrators. In this way, oral history interviews can be used as primary sources for research and for publications, documentaries, podcasts, exhibitions and other public-facing works.1
EEvery oral history project begins with a clear description of the topic, objectives and target audience. Examine all stakeholders in the project, their relationship to the topic, its objectives and its target audience, the interests each of them has in the project and how these interests relate to one another. Explore whether existing interview collections could serve the same purpose, as this may prevent narrators from being interviewed too often on the same subject. Familiarise yourself with the historical, social and cultural background of the topic you intend to explore in your interviews, as well as with the social dynamics, sensitivities, customary practices and expressions within the group or community from which you wish to gather memories. It is also important to reflect on your personal relationship to the topic and to consider any pitfalls or blind spots this may create. Ensure that you are well informed about relevant laws and regulations.2
Develop an information plan that sets out which information and metadata must be recorded during the project and how best to do so. Where possible, have this reviewed by an information specialist. Determine which archival institution is most suitable, given the topic and objectives, to ensure that the project results can be made sustainably findable, accessible and reusable. It is advisable to consult the intended archival institution at an early stage about the possibilities and requirements for depositing the project results. Allocate sufficient time and resources for this final phase of the project.
Be aware that when interviewing multiple narrators, different individuals will remember the same events in different ways. It is therefore important to ensure diversity within the group of narrators so that you can develop a rich and nuanced understanding of the topic. Seek guidance from experts on the topic and, preferably, from people with lived experience within the group or community in which you intend to conduct interviews. Their involvement can help strengthen the group’s or community’s sense of connection to the project. They may also be able to assist you in approaching potential narrators.
Are multiple interviewers involved in the project? If so, recruit them on the basis of a predefined profile and provide training for those selected. Consider the extent to which individuals from the group or community whose memories you are documenting might take on the role of interviewer. Narrators may share their memories differently with those they perceive as peers than with outsiders, and interviewers may in turn interpret what is said in different ways. Be sure to compensate interviewers appropriately for their contribution to the project.
Many factors can influence the quality of oral history interviews. These include the interviewer’s level of expertise and capacity for empathy, as well as their prior knowledge of the topic and of the narrator’s background. The choice of recording device may also affect the extent to which a narrator feels able to speak freely: will the interview be audio only, or video as well? Conducting the interview in the narrator’s first language, possibly through an interpreter, may further support their ability and confidence to speak openly.
The foundation of every interview is the degree of mutual trust between interviewer and narrator. This trust must be built carefully from the first point of contact through to the interview itself and must not be compromised thereafter. Less visible factors also underpin this trust, such as cultural and social differences, relationships of dependency, implicit biases, possible disagreements and differences in power and authority between interviewer and narrator. Consider how such factors may shape the ways in which the narrator will share their memories.
These considerations should also inform your interview strategy, including the potential topics to be covered and the way you select and phrase your questions.
As project initiator, your interests in an oral history project may differ from those of the narrators who participate in it. Discuss with narrators why participation may be of value to them and in what ways, and reflect on how you can best support that value. It is important to recognise that, once the project has been completed and the materials have been transferred to an archival institution, different factors and actors will influence access to and use of the interview file than during the project itself. Do not make promises you cannot keep. Provide narrators with access to their own recorded memories and acknowledge their contribution to the project and its final outcomes.
Use equipment that guarantees a recording quality appropriate to the objectives of the project and make sure you are proficient in positioning and operating it. Use sustainable file formats.3
Certain technologies may conflict with the objectives of the project, with the background or beliefs of narrators, with the content of the interviews or with the rights of both narrator and interviewer. Examples include software that collects and stores personal data, cloud storage located in jurisdictions governed by different laws and regulations or platforms that use uploaded files to train artificial intelligence (AI) and for other purposes, including commercial ones, without permission. For this reason, make well-considered choices about the software and hardware you use, document these choices and be transparent about them with both narrators and reusers. Respect any objections raised by narrators.
AI applications are promising tools for transcribing, analysing and enhancing access to oral history interviews. However, it is important to recognise that such applications are never neutral. The data used to train AI models may contain biases and other skewed information. This can affect the results produced by these AI applications. Developers also frequently train models using copyrighted material without permission. For this reason, assess the provenance of the application critically, evaluate fully whether the results are accurate and usable, and make corrections where necessary. Be transparent with reusers about which results have been generated by AI.
The cornerstone of an ethical and transparent oral history project is that narrators give informed consent. This means that they voluntarily agree to participate under conditions that have been agreed in advance, after they have been fully informed about what participation involves and understand it.
Provide narrators, well in advance of the interview, with clear information in language that is accessible to them about the background, objectives, personnel and stakeholders of the project, the general course of the interview and how the information they provide will be used. Explain the role of narrators in the various phases of the project. Draw their attention to their right to privacy and to the likelihood that privacy-sensitive information will be captured in the recording, and clarify what this entails. Describe why, for how long and in collaboration with which archival institution the interview file will be preserved and made accessible after the project, who will then have access to it, and under what conditions those individuals may reuse the information. Point out the opportunities and risks involved. Make clear how and until when narrators can withdraw from the project. Provide contact details for questions and complaints.
Take sufficient time to discuss everything and to answer any questions. Check the expectations that narrators have of their participation and adjust these where necessary. Ask them explicitly whether they consent to
the recording and use of their story for the objectives of the project, whether they wish to be identifiable in the interview and in the final outputs of the project, and whether they agree to the archiving and availability
of the interview file. Record the consent by having the narrator complete and sign the consent form provided for this purpose.4 Inform narrators that they may withdraw their consent at any time. Narrators may also give consent orally before the interview if this better
suits their circumstances or if they prefer this. An oral consent statement must be recorded. Archive the consent statement.
Sharing memories of turbulent periods and challenging experiences in one’s life can have a significant, sometimes unexpected emotional impact during and after the interview, for both narrators and interviewers. Consider therefore, during the project preparation phase, what forms of aftercare may be appropriate. Ask the narrator before the interview whether there is a trusted person in their environment who can offer support. Schedule a moment on the day after the interview to discuss the experience with the narrator. Refer them to specialist aftercare if necessary.
Ensure that the interview location and setting offer comfort, safety and a sense of familiarity, and respect any reasonable preferences the narrator may have. You may also conduct an interview remotely if this is the best solution for the narrator, provided that you can guarantee the confidentiality of the conversation and the narrator’s privacy.
Emphasise that the narrator may always decide, without giving any reason, not to answer a question, to pause the interview or to end it.
Plan sufficient time for the interview so that the conversation can take place without pressure. Let yourself be guided by what the narrator wishes to share and be prepared to deviate from your planned approach and questions. During the interview, pay attention to verbal and non-verbal cues from the narrator that may indicate discomfort. If the narrator shares additional memories after the interview that are relevant to the project, suggest a follow-up interview in which these memories can be recorded.
Always safeguard your own boundaries as well. Be continually honest with yourself about the extent to which the personal demands of interviewing, both mental and physical, still align with your own capacities, resilience and comfort. Make agreements in advance for where you can turn to discuss interview experiences. Also inform someone you trust about whom you are interviewing, where and when, and contact that person again once the interview has finished.
Even if the narrator has given prior consent for full disclosure of the interview, the content of a recorded conversation cannot be predicted in advance. For this reason, treat the interview as confidential and minimise the risk of unauthorised access and premature disclosure. Immediately after the interview, store the consent statement and the recording in a secure location and, preferably, keep a backup copy in another secure location independent of the first. Do the same with other materials, such as interview notes, photographs taken during the interview and documents provided by the narrator to support their story.
Make these storage locations accessible only to those involved in the post-processing and analysis of the interview. You may consider asking these individuals to sign a confidentiality agreement. If you have used borrowed or rented equipment, ensure that no recording files remain on it.
Every interview recording potentially contains sensitive information. This refers to information whose disclosure carries a real risk of violating the privacy of the narrator or of others about whom the narrator has spoken in the interview, and/or of causing emotional, physical or material harm. Personal data is always present in oral history interviews. Under Dutch data protection law, such data may only be collected, processed and stored under specific conditions.5 Narrators may also, whether consciously or unconsciously, make insulting, slanderous or defamatory statements, describe criminal activities or share information that is sensitive within their group or community, or whose disclosure would run counter to the traditions of that group or community.
Sensitive information does not by definition constitute a risk that must be mitigated in advance. Where the information in the interview concerns the narrator themselves, they are the ones who decide on this. Inform the narrator properly about this. Where the information concerns what the narrator has said in the interview about others, it is often impractical and may be ethically problematic to obtain consent from those individuals for disclosure. In such cases, you must make your own decision. Carry out a systematic risk assessment to determine the extent to which it is legally and ethically risky to disclose an interview that contains sensitive information. Identify passages that may carry a risk, place them in context and weigh the various interests involved. On that basis, make a well-reasoned assessment of the seriousness and likelihood of each risk. Record your risk assessment and the conclusions you draw from it.6
Provide the narrator with the opportunity to watch or listen back to the original recording, or to read the transcript, and suggest a debriefing session. This allows the narrator to clarify ambiguities, correct mistakes and request that passages be amended or shielded if they no longer feel comfortable with them. Document any passages in the interview that have been shielded. Also check whether the narrator still agrees to the terms set out in the consent statement.
If you have carried out a risk assessment, discuss the findings with the narrator and advise which measures are appropriate in view of the objectives of the project and the potential for reuse. For example, you may place the interview, in whole or in part, under embargo for a short or longer period, pseudonymise it or, in exceptional cases, anonymise it. Record the decision, along with any measures taken, together with the consent statement.
Also invite the narrator to respond to a developed draft of the final output in which the interview has been used. Document their response and consider to what extent it provides reasonable grounds for adjusting the final output before making it public.
Prepare the collection of interview files for transfer to an archival institution that will place the files under an appropriate archival regime. This ensures that:
- the files are preserved sustainably;
- the relationships between the various files in the material are explicit;
- access to the files is regulated;
- agreements on retention periods and availability are carried out efficiently and effectively.
Select, in consultation with the archival institution, the files to be archived together with the associated metadata. At a minimum, these include the interview recordings, the consent statements (including any documents in which additional agreements with narrators are recorded), the required metadata and, where available, the transcripts. For the purposes of reuse, it is also advisable to archive information about the background of the project and the interview. Formalise the transfer in writing.
Publish a project description.7 This should outline the objectives, funding, approach and results of the project; the criteria used to select narrators; how the interviews were conducted and recorded; and, in general and anonymised terms, the content of the interviews. It should also specify where the collection of interviews is archived and whether, and if so how and under what conditions, it is accessible. The project description is a first step towards reuse and provides narrators with a point of reference regarding the project in which they took part.
Record rich metadata for each interview file to support file management and to ensure its findability, accessibility and reusability. Describe the metadata using a standard that is readable by both humans and machines. Where possible, use terms drawn from thesauri.8 Always record in the metadata the conditions for, and restrictions on, access and reuse, as well as any embargoes. This prevents the need to consult the associated consent statement for every request from a reuser for access to an interview file.9 Publish online a selection of the recorded metadata aimed at enhancing the findability, accessibility and reuse of the interview file. Never make any personal data from the interview file publicly available in the metadata unless the narrator has explicitly consented to this.
When oral history interviews, or parts of them, are reused for purposes such as research, public presentations, education or journalism, they may be used for purposes that differ from the purpose for which they were originally recorded. This may prompt questions among the audience of the new application about the provenance and original background of the interview, as well as about the extent to which the narrator’s story genuinely supports the new purpose. Enable audiences to find answers to these questions themselves by ensuring that the interview can be located in its original context. Ensure that reusers can rely on persistent identifiers to refer to the interview or, if it is not available online, to the metadata record in which you describe it. Provide clear instructions on how reusers should cite the source (how-to-cite guidance).
For ethically responsible reuse, reusers must be as familiar as possible with the original background of the interview and the circumstances under which it was recorded, and be able to place it in time, so that they understand the meaning of the recorded conversation. For this reason, preserve and describe as much information as possible that can shed light on this. This may include publications produced as part of the project, but also, for example, the project proposal, a project plan, notes made during the interview and logbooks in which the choices made during the project are explained. Information about the backgrounds of the narrators and of the interviewer is also relevant. In addition, provide contact information so that reusers know where to turn with questions, and keep this contact information up to date. For interviews or collections containing material that may be experienced as hurtful or offensive, consider providing a content warning with an explanation.
Preserving and making available a rich body of background information enhances the transparency of oral history practice in the Netherlands and enables individuals and organisations that use oral history as a method and source to hold one another to account and, above all, to learn from one another.
When reusers work with interview collections, they must do so with the same care and with the same attention to the interests and well-being of the narrator and the interviewer as the creators did. To this end, make appropriate guidance available to them. Ensure that your organisation has contact persons whom reusers can consult about these matters, and provide training for those concerned. Draw reusers’ attention to the unique aspects of oral history in comparison with other methods for studying historical events and heritage, and with other audiovisual collections. Explain the practice of informed consent and how it shapes the possibilities for reuse. Provide information on the applicable laws and regulations, and, finally, familiarise reusers with the ethics of oral history as a method and source by directing them to this Ethical Code for Oral History Netherlands.
anonymise
To alter or remove personal data in a source of information in such a way that reusers of oral history interviews can no longer identify the person or people speaking in it, or those who are discussed. Because anonymisation is irreversible, and because the personal nature of the story often requires substantial amounts of information to be removed, it significantly reduces the usefulness of the recording and the transcript. For this reason, anonymising interviews is not recommended. See also pseudonymise.
archival institution
An organisation that specialises in collecting, permanently preserving and providing access to sources of information that may be regarded as research data or cultural heritage, such as an archive, museum, (university) library or data repository.
content warning
A warning, accompanied by an explanation, indicating that certain topics discussed or the language used in a source or collection may be experienced as shocking, offensive or distressing.
diversity
Variation among people within a group, community or society. This variation may relate to many factors, such as cultural background, sex and gender identity, socio-economic status, age, and so on.
embargo
A restriction that prohibits making a source of information, or parts of it, publicly available until a specified date.
FAIR
An acronym for Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable. FAIR consists of a set of principles designed to make research data more findable, accessible, interoperable (aligned with other datasets) and reusable. The FAIR principles originate in the research domain and are comparable to, for example, the principles of the Dutch Digital Heritage Network (Netwerk Digitaal Erfgoed) for ensuring the long-term findability, usability and sustainability of digital collections.
information specialist
Someone who has substantial first-hand experience in a particular area and who can advise and support others on the basis of that experience.
informed consent
A professional who specialises in recording, managing and providing access to (meta)data and information, for example a collection information manager or data steward. Provincial heritage centres also provide support in this area.
interview file
The interview recording and all relevant derived and related documents required to interpret the interview, situate it in its context and enable its sustainable reuse.
metadata
Data that describes the context, content and structure of sources of information, and their management over time, usually according to a defined schema, the metadata standard. Commonly used metadata standards include Dublin Core, DataCite and EAD (Encoded Archival Description).
persistent identifier
A unique, permanent reference to a specific online resource. This reference remains the same even if the location of the resource it points to changes. A commonly used example is the Digital Object Identifier (DOI), which is used to reference digital resources.
person with lived experience
Someone who has substantial first-hand experience in a particular area and who can advise and support others on the basis of that experience.
pseudonymise
To alter personal data in such a way that it can no longer be traced back to identifiable individuals without additional, separately stored information, such as a translation key or encryption key. Unlike anonymising (see the entry ‘anonymise’), pseudonymising is in principle reversible and therefore impairs the reusability of interview recordings and transcripts to a lesser extent.
thesaurus
A structured, often hierarchical list of terms and their relationships within a specific field or domain of knowledge. Examples of widely used thesauri include the Arts & Architecture Thesaurus (AAT), the Dutch Heritage Thesaurus (Erfgoedthesaurus) and the Common Thesaurus for Audiovisual Archives (GTAA).
transcript
A text document in which the spoken interview is written out verbatim.
The checklist presents, in bullet-point form, the various considerations set out in the Ethical Code for Oral History Netherlands. It follows the same structure as the Code and contains the fifteen principles, each accompanied by one or more succinctly formulated points of attention.
This checklist is not a stand-alone or comprehensive summary of the Ethical Code for Oral History Netherlands; rather, it serves as a practical aid. It is intended as a reminder when working through the different phases of an oral history project with an ethical perspective in mind. For the background to each element in the checklist, we recommend consulting the commentary in the Code corresponding to the principle from which the element is derived. Nor should this checklist be regarded as an official reporting tool or as a certificate of compliance with the Ethical Code for Oral History Netherlands.
You can download the checklist via the link below.
The Ethical Code for Oral History Netherlands is digitally published on Zenodo under the identifier (DOI):
10.5281/zenodo.17143399.
This is a persistent reference that will remain active indefinitely. Therefore, in publications, grant proposals, etc., always cite the Ethical Code for Oral History Netherlands as follows:
Ethical Code for Oral History Netherlands, version 1 (2025); https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17143399.
The Ethical Code for Oral History Netherlands is a public document, and its authors therefore dedicate it to the public domain.
The Ethical Code for Oral History Netherlands, version 1 (2025), is released under the CC0 1.0 Public Domain Dedication.
