Learning with and from Rwandan Survivor-Historians: Testimonial Oral History as Relationship Building in Schools

Abstract

This chapter examines challenges and promising practices of producing and bringing oral and life histories into the history classroom and especially the introduction of testimony and documentary film in the study of violent pasts. It weaves the voices of four educators and partners in a unique ongoing university–community–school participatory research project foregrounding Rwandan Canadian community knowledge production and expectations concerning the study of the 1994 Rwandan genocide against the Tutsi at the secondary level. We ground discussions of complex ethical challenges within school-based practice, asking what this means for the historian-survivor/co-creator, student as witness and listener, and teacher as pedagogical facilitator.