Oral history collection is a long-standing pedagogical and research interest, that has been articulated through numerous projects and programs. Explore here the Punjabi in BC project, which has allowed undergraduate students to be hired as Research Assistants to document the history of the Punjabi language in British Columbia, and student works in UBC classes that have incorporated Oral History projects.

The “Caste in Canada” project is another important oral history initiative. This project, in its first phase from 2020 to 2023, collected the oral histories of persons in the Canadian context impacted by caste discrimination. See discussion of preliminary findings in this essay by Dr. Anne Murphy (UBC) and Dr. Suraj Yengde (Harvard University/Oxford University):

How caste discrimination impacts communities in Canada  https://theconversation.com/how-caste-discrimination-impacts-communities-in-canada-224603 (March 24, 2024)

This project continues with a new initiative to hire a Postdoctoral Fellow in Dalit Studies at the University of British Columbia.

Pedagogical projects:

In the effort to provide students with the opportunity to visit Punjab in an academic context, we implemented the Undergraduate Research Conference in Punjab (Feb 2019). This program was developed in collaboration with Punjabi University Patiala, and brought together fifteen students from UBC with fifteen students from Punjabi University to explore how the past is represented in the Indian Punjab today.