Time, source, and responsibility: understanding changing uses of the past in ‘post-conflict’ South African history teaching, 1998 and 2019

ABSTRACT

We propose a new framework for understanding post-conflict history education based on ethnographic fieldwork in the same South African school two decades apart. We explore how and why teachers engage with the legacies of conflict in 1998 and 2019 by investigating how they draw boundaries around 1) time, what the conflict period is and how stark lines are between past and present; 2) source, where knowledge resides and legitimacy of expertise and lived experience; and 3) responsibility, who creates and who benefits from social change, particularly vis-à-vis individual and collective action. We suggest that by looking at why, how, where, and by whom these lines between past/present, historiography/experience, and individual/structural responsibility are drawn, we can strengthen comparative approaches to understanding post-conflict history education.

KEYWORDS:

• History education
• post-conflict
• South Africa
• qualitative methods
• secondary education

Acknowledgments

We express our thanks to the students and teachers who participated in this study, both in 1998 and in 2019; to the Western Cape Education Department; to Katy Bullard for tremendous research assistance; and to Rob Siebörger and the UCT history teachers reading group for conversations over many years that have deepened our thinking.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Research ethics

This research was reviewed and approved by the Committee on the Use of Human Subjects at Harvard University and University of Oxford. Permission for data collection was granted by the Western Cape Education Department, South Africa. All participants were aware of our roles as academic researchers and provided with an information sheet about the research, its potential risks and benefits, and their rights within the research; all gave their consent for participation. All appropriate steps were taken to protect participants’ confidentiality.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/03057925.2023.2212111.

Notes

1. See Online Appendix 1 for discussion of ‘post-conflict terminology’.

2. The name of the school and students and teachers are pseudonyms.

3. In making a distinction between personal testimony and personal memory we draw on Oliver (2001), cited in Zembylas and Bekerman (2008), who distinguishes between ‘eyewitness testimony based on first hand knowledge, on the one hand, and bearing witness to something beyond recognition that can’t be seen on the other’ (16).

4. Life Orientation is a subject implemented in South African high schools, to teach students about topics such as sexual and physical education, future career options, and citizenship.

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the Harvard Graduate School of Education, the Economic and Social Research Council (UK), and the Rotary Foundation.