Abstract
This chapter explores the interplay between historical narratives and the citizenry-making in post-conflict times. The author examines literature on history and citizenship education and discusses the ‘transactional’ dynamic and the sociopolitical implications of telling a particular narrative that ascribes meanings to the past, while shaping and orienting the citizen-subject in the present. This chapter covers three sections: First, the normative framing of post-conflict citizens. Second, different types of historical narratives relevant to citizens’ subjectivity. Third, future steps toward empirical studies focusing on the synergies between civic subjectivity and historical narratives that expand our views and understandings on postwar youth positioning and agency in face of the prospects, possibilities, drawbacks, and uncertainties in the aftermath of conflict.
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Notes
- 1.
Subjectivity in this chapter follows the Foucauldian understanding of the twofold dimensions ‘being-made’ and ‘self-making’. Consequently, the subject is not exclusively made by power relations stressing restrictions and regulations through institutions and apparatuses of rule, but also the subject produces the self through her/his own capacity of actively engaging with the power practices and techniques; agents with the capacities of acting and being (Foucault 1982, 2001).
- 2.
The review of literature encompasses books, book chapters, peer-reviewed journal articles, and reports, concerning History and Citizenship Education in conflict-affected societies. For each corresponding section of this chapter I reviewed 38, 65, and 26 sources, respectively. But it is worth noting that some sources were used in more than one section or more than one type of historical narrative (section II). This feature speaks for the intricacies, entanglements, and disputes over the narration of the past and the aspirations and difficulties of consolidating political transitions.
- 3.
The term ‘post-conflict’ is commonly used in different fields to indicate the subsequent stage of a society that has recently experienced a violent conflict, including an armed conflict or authoritarian regime. Although the use of the term might be practical for categorization purposes, a loose use of it as an umbrella term can be of profound simplification (Davies 2004b), since it may overshadow the complexity entailed in the social and political transition. The term can fall short to describe the nature of conflict, which happens on a continuum rather than compartmentalized and well-defined phases (Quaynor 2012). At the core of the debate is not the end of the conflict itself, but the long-term and challenging process of moving from a conflict-habituated system to a non-violent one; this is, the transformation of conflict and not is mere resolution (Botes 2003). While bearing this complexity in mind and acknowledging it to the reader, I opt to use the term ‘post-conflict’ for practical reasons in this chapter.
- 4.
Building on the first footnote, I elaborate on ‘subjectification’ as the dual process of ‘self-shaping’ and ‘being-shaped’ of a particular kind of subject (the postwar subject-citizen) within the networks of power and agency related to the nation-state and the civil society. See Ong (1996) for an ethnographic approach of citizenship as a cultural process of subjectification.
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Romero-Amaya, D. (2021). Historical Narratives and Civic Subjectification in the Aftermath of Conflict. In: Keynes, M., Åström Elmersjö, H., Lindmark, D., Norlin, B. (eds) Historical Justice and History Education. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-70412-4_6
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