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

Abstract

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.