HISTORICAL JUSTICE AND HISTORY EDUCATION
This symposium will explore the evolving relationship between historical justice and history education, broadly conceived, which is generating many challenges as well as possibilities for both fields. In recent years, movements for historical justice have gained global momentum and prominence as the focus on righting wrongs from the past has become a feature of contemporary politics. This impetus has manifested in globally diverse contexts including societies emerging from a period of recent, violent conflict, but also, established democracies which are increasingly compelled to address the legacies of colonialism, slavery, genocides, and war crimes, as well as other forms of protracted discord. A diverse suite of redress instruments, including but not limited to criminal tribunals, truth commissions, reparations, and official apologies, are now regularly deployed in efforts to remedy and overcome historical injustices.
This symposium is concerned with the ways that the expectations of historical justice are being taken up in, and directed towards, educational contexts, particularly history education. Our primary questions are:
- How does the ‘official knowledge’ generated from state-sponsored historical justice processes get used, and how should it be used?
- What are the implications of historical justice movements for history education?
- What is the role of history education in processes of historical justice, and what should it be?
Researchers, scholars and practitioners are invited to present papers that address one or more of these questions. This symposium seeks papers that explore both empirical and conceptual approaches to these questions. Other related topics include:
- The concept of truth in historical justice and history education
- The role of commemoration and memory in historical justice and education
- Education, and truth and reconciliation processes
- Relationships between historical justice and other fields such as historical culture, historiography, and history education
- Historical justice and history education in different contexts (postconflict, postcolonial, settler colonial, democratic etc.)
The convenors intend to publish the papers presented at the symposium as an edited volume on the same theme with a major scholarly publisher by 2020.
Please note: Publication of accepted papers will be subject to the quality standards of this publication and thus will normally require further revision and peer-review, after the symposium.
Symposium Convenors:
Henrik Åström Elmersjö, Matilda Keynes, Daniel Lindmark, Björn Norlin