Reconciliation through dialogical nostalgia in post-conflict societies: a curriculum to intersect

Abstract

The curriculum has been proposed as a powerful means with the potential to initiate social transformation. It reflects the dominant social, economical and political discourses and for this reason it seems reasonable to situate reconciliatory discourses in relation to the curriculum. Whilst curriculum scholars mostly agree that we need to seek new directions and ways of understanding curriculum, there is little consensus about the direction the field should take. Two particular issues that this article addresses are the tendency of curriculum practitioners to tackle social issues at a symptomatic level instead of considering the roots of the problems, and the over-emphasis on the political dimension with little or no attention given to the ethical dimensions of the curriculum. In an attempt to develop new ways of understanding curriculum and enabling social change, I explore nostalgia as a way to stimulate dialogue over competing narratives. To facilitate this exploration, I draw on the notion of the ethical turn in the study of curriculum and the theory of intersectionality. Examples from South Africa are used to develop the argument. I conclude by situating the discussion in the context of other post-conflict societies where reconciliation is needed.

Keywords:

• nostalgia
• curriculum
• intersectionality
• ethical turn
• dialogue
• narratives
• reconciliation
• post-conflict societies

Notes

1. ‘Narrative’ in this article is used in a broad context to denote people’s lived experiences; their life stories and social realities. The notion of ‘typified narratives’ is used to illustrate that there are dominant discourses or clusters of narratives that represents a variety of individual narratives and that illustrate various political, cultural and historical beliefs and values. These typified narratives each contain specific symbols, myths and metaphors and could be understood as ‘dominant evocations’ (Soudien 2010, 1). When two or more of these typified narratives are in conflict, the notion of ‘competing narratives’ is used.

2. More about the history of nostalgia could be obtained from the work of Boym (2001).

3. At the time that this paper was first written and presented he was still the youth leader of the African National Congress. He has since been suspended from the party for a five-year period after being accused of corruption, sowing division within the ANC, and bringing the party into disrepute (Commey 2011a, 2011b).