Enacting the contested past: conflict narratives in educational spaces

Abstract

Abstract. The article analyzes unfoldings and enactments of narratives on a politically divisive past in educational spaces of two multi-ethnic settings -the Republic of Tatarstan and Bosnia and Herzegovina. We explore how the contested past is represented within official school curricula and how it unfolds in concrete school settings. In each case we have a historic event that is a politically divisive and contentious issue. Though one of these historical events lies far back in history (1552) and the other is more recent (1992)(1993)(1994)(1995), in both cases the contested past is being silenced in the official history curricula. The paper is guided by the following question: in what ways does a past that is muted within a history curriculum continue to speak and structure the relationships of the school present? In order to answer this question, we situate our work within the literature on ethnographies of education, as well as the relatively new but burgeoning field of inquiry on emotional geographies and anthropologies of education. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in these two settings, we argue that the narratives on the violent past form and divide national communities not only through divergent views and interpretations of the historic event by the groups involved but also through strong emotional attachments to these narratives. We conclude by calling for a sustained engagement with emotions in educational settings as sites of embodiment that work to negotiate and actively rework top-down educational narratives, especially when considering the processes of identity-building through school spaces.

Three-faced: The conflicting roles of citizenship education in conflict-affected societies – A comparison of Northern Ireland and Israel

“…Besides participants’ interpretations of CE that can empower students to become politically aware and active, CE was also utilised as a political tool – a space that students use to amplify dominant narratives of the conflict, which they likely have been socialised into through their communities. Previous research has established that even when contested narratives about the past are avoided in school curricula, they remain deeply politicised and implicated in teachers’ and students’ biographies and emotional experiences (Laketa and Suleymanova, 2017).…”

“…Previous research has established that even when contested narratives about the past are avoided in school curricula, they remain deeply politized and implicated in teachers' and students' biographies and emotional experiences (Laketa and Suleymanova, 2017). Muting such issues risks giving way to manipulation by those who seek to increase the divide between communities (Bekerman and Zembylas, 2011).…”

Introduction to the special issue “Young People and New Geographies of Learning and Education”

“…In her article on emotional geographies in plural transitions of young people from disadvantaged socioeconomic backgrounds in Leipzig (Germany), Kathrin Hörschelmann demonstrates the benefit of this approach (see also Laketa and Suleymanova, 2017, in this special issue). Drawing on her participants' accounts of interpersonal conflicts and how these young people negotiate the resulting emotions in their diverse everyday experiences and institutional contexts, she shows that interpersonal conflicts evoke emotions well beyond the present moment and the local spatial context.…”

“…Laketa and Suleymanova ask an important question: "In what ways does a past that is muted within a school history curriculum continue to speak and structure the relationship of the school present?" (Laketa and Suleymanova, 2017:5, this special issue). They argue that pupils' subjectivities are produced in a negotiation of collective and official top-down educational discourses (represented through textbooks, for example) with the individual and resistant practices of teachers and pupils.…”

“…Such an approach helps to focus on questions that address power relations on various scales and in various encounters that produce spaces and identities of learning and education (e.g. Bauer, 2015;Kraftl, 2013;Landolt, 2013;Bitzi and Landolt, 2017, in this special issue; Laketa and Suleymanova, 2017, in this special issue). This approach puts places of learning in relation to other places of formal and informal learning and education (Leander et al, 2010;Valentine, 2000;Hörschelmann, 2018, in this special issue).…”