“You ask many questions, but you don’t give many answers”: Embracing the Mess in Conflict Studies Classrooms

Abstract

This paper reflects on the author’s experience of teaching oral history and related qualitative methods to students in Conflict Studies, a program oriented around intervening in conflicts and effecting positive change in the world. It examines how students have engaged with the complexities of a postmodern approach to oral history that embraces uncertainty and the messiness inherent in interviewing. How do students understand what it means to embrace a plural notion of “truths”? How can this be a constructive force in their lives that helps them see the world in more complex ways, rather than making everything so contingent that we can draw no meaning from it at all? Drawing upon the author’s own experiences as well as the recorded reflections of four former students, this paper shows the challenges and rewards of encouraging students to engage with these complex questions. It also warns that in the current political era of “alternative facts” and “fake news,” navigating such nuanced terrain must be done with caution.