Oral History as a Method for Peace Journalists: Sevgül Uludağ as a Case Study

Abstract

Sevgül Uludağ is an internationally renowned Turkish-Cypriot journalist. She describes herself as a peace activist and at the same time a journalist. In recent years, she has begun doing oral history, interviewing people in search of missing persons and mass graves in both sides of Cyprus. In this paper, I will evaluate her work from the point of peace journalism. Peace journalism, as an alternative to traditional conflict oriented journalism, not only tries to contribute peace initiatives, it also calls journalists to investigate the wrongdoings in both sides. In the famous chart created by Johan Galtung (2006), contrasting peace journalism with war journalism, it is stated that peace journalism humanizes all sides; focuses on invisible effects of violence; exposes untruths of all sides; uncovers all cover-ups; focuses on suffering all over; gives name to all evil-doers. These are all what Sevgül Uludağ has been doing. She began interviewing the children of the missing persons. She called those children the “Oysters with the Missing Pearls”. She then began searching the missing persons in both communities under the title, “In Search of the Missing Persons”. She interviewed the children of the victims of nationalisms on both sides under the title of “The Orphans of Nationalism”. Recently she has started publishing interviews about missing persons and mass graves in Cyprus. Her work is also a good example of oral history. Oral history can be defined as a method of collecting first hand knowledge on the significant events of the past. As an oral historian, Sevgül Uludağ aims at painting the history of ordinary people as it is never told in the official history.