In this paper, I consider the issue of postcolonialism and postsocialism from the perspective of the discipline of anthropology. I argue that the recent efforts of anthropologists at bringing postcolonialism and postsocialism into dialogue can help us to develop a fresh conceptual framing of ethnographic problems and can play a positive role in the dismantling of the historically generated and geographically bounded divisions that have determined scholarly approaches to analysing peoples' experiences in different parts of the globe. I insist, however, on what I consider to be a key epistemological divergence between the two concepts. While postcolonialism was born as a project of indigenous epistemological critique of the persistence of colonialism in the postcolonial present with emancipatory/liberatory implications, postsocialism was developed as an analytical tool by western scholars to analyse the former societies of the Communist bloc. This hegemonic epistemology of postsocialism makes it a very different concept from postcolonialism and raises questions concerning its usefulness as an intellectually empowering tool for scholars in challenging local inequities arising from the effects of global capitalism. In order to illustrate this limitation, I review the recent disciplinary debate on the politics of knowledge production between native and western anthropologists of postsocialism.

Public education is not just a way to organise and fund education. It is also the expression of a particular ideal about education and of a particular way to conceive of the relationship between education and society. The ideal of public education sees education as an important dimension of the common good and as an important institution in securing the common good. The common good is never what individuals or particular groups want or desire, but always reaches beyond such particular desires towards that which societies as a whole should consider as desirable. This does, of course, put the common good in tension with the desires of individuals and groups. Neo-liberal modes of governance have, over the past decades, put this particular educational set up under pressure and have, according to some, eroded the very idea of the common good. This set of contributions reflects on this state of affairs, partly through an exploration of the idea of publicness itselfhow it can be rearticulated and regainedand partly through reflections on the current state of education in the 'north' and the 'south.' ARTICLE HISTORY

This paper draws upon data from two youth-focused, ethnographically informed inquiries-one in Poland, the other in Guatemala-to describe how historical memory can conflict with both state historical narratives and with globalized approaches to democratic citizenship education. This analysis helps us to better understand the ways that, in post-conflict societies, schools function as spaces in which overlapping claims of community, nation, and world frame the development of youth citizenship and belonging.Este análisis, basado en dos investigaciones etnográficas, una en Polonia y la otra en Guatemala describe cómo la memoria histórica puede entrar en conflicto con las narrativas históricas estatales y con los enfoques globalizados de la educación para la ciudadanía democrática. Este análisis nos ayuda a comprender mejor las formas en que, en las sociedades posconflicto, las escuelas funcionan como espacios en los que los reclamos superpuestos de comunidad, nación y mundo enmarcan el desarrollo de la ciudadanía y pertenencia a los jóvenes. [citizenship, democratic education, Guatemala, historical memory, Poland] "Today's government is trying to change and hide facts from that historical time. They are trying to change history."• Student, Private High 1 , a private city high-school in Poland, focus group "The history, it is painful but important…Historical memory is knowing the historical truth. State sponsored education never gives it."• Co-founder, Nuestro Futuro, a rural public school serving Indigenous 2 students in Guatemala, interview Young people's sense of themselves as citizens draws upon and is deeply connected to the ways that they learn about, remember, and interpret the histories of their families, communities, and countries. Yet the process of "producing" educated persons and citizens within schools (Levinson, Foley, and Holland 1996) is traditionally framed as a straightforward, curricular transmission of an official state version of history and patriotic values or, more recently, the inculcation of an internationally validated set of liberal democratic norms and practices (DeLugan 2012; Levinson 2011). The confrontation of history in person-the personal or "intimate formations result[ing] from the practice of identification in historically specific times and places" (Holland and Lave 2001, 18)-with official historical and civic narratives has deep implications for youth civic identity and belonging,

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