In recent years, oral archives have moved from the margins to the centre of scholarly attention. Whether preserved on fragile analogue media or collected through digital technologies, recorded voices now serve as key sources for understanding languages, memories, identities, performances, and social practices. Their value extends across disciplinary boundaries, involving researchers, cultural institutions, and communities who use, interpret, and care for these materials in different ways. Engaging with oral archives today entails navigating methodological complexities, technological innovations, legal and ethical responsibilities, as well as the challenge of ensuring long-term accessibility and responsible reuse. It also involves recognising the creative, documentary and political power embedded in spoken testimonies and sonic heritage. To this end, the oral archive researcher is asked to keep an attentive eye on the ever-shaping landscape of their manifestations in scholarly and public discourse.
Oral Archives Journal (OAr) was established to respond to this complexity. Founded in 2024 and jointly published by USiena Press and Firenze University Press, it provides an international platform for scholars, practitioners, and community-based stakeholders to critically examine how oral archives are created, sustained, interpreted, and transformed. OAr follows a Diamond Open Access model offering free access to readers and charging no publication fees to authors, assigns DOIs, employs blind peer review, and welcomes both traditional research articles and data papers that give academic recognition to archival work. See previous issues for an overview of the journal’s interdisciplinary scope and the variety of formats it embraces.
With Volume 3 (2027), OAr invites contributions that explore oral archives in relation to their practices, infrastructures, and disciplinary crossings. We welcome submissions from any theoretical, empirical, technical, legal, ethical, or community-based perspective. To structure this dialogue, the journal is organised into three main sections:
- The life cycle of the archives brings together contributions on the full spectrum of archival work. It includes reflections on how oral data are produced (e.g. fieldwork methodologies, collection strategies, archive design); how they are curated (including data papers presenting established, peer-reviewed archives and providing access coordinates); how they are preserved over time (from analogue restoration and digitisation to data migration and storage sustainability); and how they are used or reused in research, education, public engagement, artistic production, or community initiatives.
- Cross-cutting dimensions focuses on transversal issues that shape every stage of the archival process. It invites proposals on the role of speech transcription as both a methodological and interpretive practice; on the development and evaluation of speech technologies for recording, processing, and managing oral data (including benchmarks and usability testing); on legal frameworks governing intellectual property, personal data protection, licensing and access; and on ethical considerations concerning researcher–informant relationships, community participation, dissemination practices, restitution and repatriation.
- Landscaping Oral Archives acts as a critical observatory of current developments in the field. Rather than reporting events, this section seeks interpretive analyses that examine how conferences, policies, infrastructures, educational initiatives, census results, or institutional changes are reshaping the landscape of oral archives and influencing future directions. The emphasis is on understanding broader implications and positioning the field within a wider cultural and scholarly context.
Articles should range between 30,000 and 50,000 characters (including bibliography), be written in English, Italian, or French, and include an English abstract (maximum 150 words) and five keywords in English. Submissions must follow the Chicago Manual of Style (see the journal website for detailed guidelines).
Submissions must be made exclusively through the journal’s online platform. Authors are required to create an account and follow the step-by-step submission procedure outlined on the website. Manuscripts should be prepared in accordance with the journal’s anonymization guidelines. By submitting, authors confirm that the manuscript is original, has not been published elsewhere, and is not under review by another journal.
Timeline
Submission deadline: March 15, 2026
Notification of acceptance: May 31, 2026
Publication: Early 2027
We invite contributions from established and early-career researchers, archivists, technologists, legal and ethical experts, and practitioners working in cultural institutions or communities. OAr aims to foster collaboration across disciplines and sectors, support innovation in methods and infrastructures, and strengthen the scholarly visibility of oral archives. By bringing together diverse voices and perspectives, the journal seeks to advance a shared understanding of the challenges and potential of oral archives for research and society.
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