TEHRAN – Iran’s minister of cultural heritage, tourism and handicrafts has called for a national program to record and document oral history across all 31 provinces, saying the initiative is essential to preserving the country’s historical and cultural memory.
Seyyed Reza Salehi-Amiri made the remarks in a message issued to mark the opening of the ministry’s first practical training workshop on oral history. The message was read by Gholamreza Zarifian, head of the council for oral history policy, at the workshop’s opening ceremony, Mehr news agency reported on Thursday.
Salehi-Amiri described oral history as a means of documenting, analyzing and safeguarding a nation’s collective memory, stressing the importance of systematically recording experiences, knowledge, accounts and developments related to cultural heritage, tourism and handicrafts.
“Future generations will build Iran’s tomorrow based on recording the developments of today,” he said in the message.
He said expanding oral history projects to all 31 provinces was a strategic necessity for protecting Iran’s historical, cultural and social heritage and developing a more complete national account of changes in the three sectors.
Much of the knowledge and experience associated with these fields, he noted, has developed within local and regional communities. Failure to document such material could result in the loss of an important part of the country’s historical wealth.
The minister stressed that oral history should not be confined to the ministry’s central administration, a handful of provinces or widely known historical accounts. Instead, he called for a nationwide program implemented in stages and tailored to the capacities and characteristics of each province.
Achieving this goal would require a common scientific methodology and a coordinated national framework, allowing provinces to document their distinctive experiences and narratives while following shared research standards, the message said.
Key measures would include developing national oral history guidelines, identifying research priorities, selecting significant interviewees, establishing appropriate sampling methods and using standardized interview guides.
The process should also include accurate recording and transcription of interviews, verification of information, documentation of sources, expert review, preservation of original files and the creation of standardized metadata, according to the message.
Salehi-Amiri also highlighted the need to train provincial researchers and interviewers and strengthen cooperation among provincial offices, universities, research centers, professional associations and local cultural institutions.
He said ethical research practices must be observed throughout the process, including obtaining informed consent from interviewees, protecting their intellectual and material rights, and establishing clear rules governing the storage, access and publication of their accounts.
The proposed program should reflect Iran’s historical, cultural, linguistic, social and geographical diversity, ensuring that the experiences of different social groups are represented in the national oral history collection.
These groups could include veterans and experienced professionals, former and current managers, handicrafts masters and practitioners, tourism professionals, cultural heritage workers and local communities.
Salehi-Amiri stressed that the initiative should go beyond collecting interviews and lead to the production of useful, credible materials, including books, documentaries, audio and video programs, portraits, exhibitions and educational content.
Such outputs could help integrate local accounts into a broader understanding of Iran’s national history, strengthen cultural identity, document developments in tourism and handicrafts, and provide information to support future policymaking, he said.
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