Remembering and Narrating Conflict offers resource materials for those working on storytelling, historical clarification, documentation truth telling, and memory work initiatives in different regions of the world.
Memory and memorialization have taken a center place in the work and priorities of many community groups, civil society organizations, victims/survivors groups and non-governmental organizations in conflict/postconflict spaces. Remembering and Narrating Conflict considers the lessons learned and the many dilemmas that emerge from this work. It offers resource materials for critically engaging with questions of how to create and foster plural spaces for narrative and testimonial encounters; who and how should be involved, and in what; and how to contribute to tasks of historical clarification, truth telling, or dignifying the memories of the victims when memory is a critical and disputed terrain. Table of contents is available here.
These resources began as a project of the Colombian Historical Memory Group (Grupo de Memoria Historica), which was created in 2005 as part of the National Reconciliation and Reparations Commission. Its mission was to develop an inclusive and comprehensive narrative of the reasons for the emergence and the evolution of the internal armed conflict and the armed groups. As part of that work the commission held collective memory workshops around Colombia. Many who participated in these workshops appreciated the various methods that were used and wanted to know more about them so that they could hold similar sessions. Resource material was created that spoke to the what, how, and why of this sort of work. It is available online in Spanish.
That toolkit was well received in Colombia, and it was suggested that it could also be useful to those doing memory work in other contexts of violence. So as to make the toolkit more appropriate and relevant in other countries and contexts, a dialogue was opened, with the support of funding from the Swiss Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Thirty-three memory workers in twenty countries (across four continents) read and commented on an initial English translation and adaption of the toolkit. Twenty of these then attended a workshop held in Vancouver, BC, Canada May 25th and 26th, 2011, to engage in further discussion and feedback.
The attached .pdf below contains the introduction to the resource material. To the right, you can find a .pdf with the material as a whole or you might prefer to download the .pdf for particular sections. The tabs above introduce each section and offer access to the .pdf for that section
Click here to view section as online PDF.