Some contradictions of multiple perspectives approaches to peace and history education: lessons from Cambodia

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article reflects on tensions arising in multiple perspectives approaches as they are deployed in response to histories of atrocity and conflict. We call attention to the ways that multiple perspectives intersect with the challenges posed by competing memories of violence and questions of responsibility. Focusing on a peace education programme that sought to work with ‘complex’ perpetrator histories in Cambodia, we explore how peace education can produce its intended aims of building dialogue and empathy across groups while, coextensively, enabling space for potentially harmful forms of historical revisionism. We show how the multi-perspectivity in peace education can be misaligned with the subjectivities that it seeks to reconcile or dignify in the present and reflect on the need for peace educators to develop approaches that move beyond the presentation of ‘perspective’ and identity as synonymous. We conclude by calling attention to other potential figurations of shared responsibility within peace education..