This section introduces a methodological framework and a set of methods to work with narratives and storytelling to reconstruct historical memory. The methods outlined allow for the exploration of the ways in which people elaborate, construct, change, and interpret the events they experienced. That is to say, how people give meaning to the past, and how their individual memories are intertwined with collective or group memories.

The section starts with questions that can be used to guide the exploration of the past, violent events, and their impacts. These questions seek to not only ensure that facts, events and testimonies of what happened are fully documented, but also to ensure that the way they were experienced and interpreted by those who lived them are included.

These are followed by an in depth review of different ways to elicit memory and specific methods to advance this work (Appendix 1 provide further in depth examples of process and activities).  These methods include place based ways of doing memory work, such as various forms of mapping; time based ways, such as timelines; body based ways, such as body maps; material and visual based ways, such as photographs; and narrative based ways, such as life stories.

A last section includes a discussion of the process and dynamics when several of these methods are used together in group based formats, such as one or two day memory workshops.

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