Talking about the female self across the life course: Self realisation in interview and in life

The oral history interview has, for many historians of women and gender, become a site for the expression of the (authentic) self; a moment in time wherein the narrator is offered a privileged space to speak a truth, not only to the interviewer but to herself. The concept of self realisation has come to prominence in studies of post war women who have found personal autonomy after lives which have been spent, in part, servicing others' needs. In oral history interviews with women who grew up in the post WW2 decades, the confluence of the feminist movement which legitimised female autonomy and the wide acceptance of the notion of the confessional self has resulted in the oral history interview providing a space for self realisation post facto: that is, women who have lived lives in which selfhood has been at various times submerged, oppressed, muted  and emancipated, have articulated selves in interview which are often at odds with the person they thought they were. This can make for surprising and enlightening revelations - not least for the narrator - and transforms the interview into something beyond what was anticipated or imagined.  This paper explores those encounters where the narrated self is at variance with what I call the settled self, whereby the interview process brings forth self realisation on the part of the interviewee prompting a questioning of previously uncontested understandings of a life story.