Routledge Oral History, Education, and Justice: Possibilities and Limitations for Redress and Reconciliation

This book addresses oral history as a form of education for redress and reconciliation. It provides scholarship that troubles both the possibilities and limitations of oral history in relation to the pedagogical and curricular redress of historical harms. Contributing authors compel the reader to question what oral history calls them to do, as citizens, activists, teachers, or historians, in moving towards just relations. Highlighting the link between justice and public education through oral history, chapters explore how oral histories question pedagogical and curricular harms, and how they shed light on what is excluded or made invisible in public education. The authors speak to oral history as a hopeful and important pedagogy for addressing difficult knowledge, exploring significant questions such as: how do community-based oral history projects affect historical memory of the public? What do we learn from oral history in government systems of justice versus in the political struggles of non-governmental organizations? What is the burden of collective remembering and how does oral history implicate people in the past? How are oral histories about difficult knowledge represented in curriculum, from digital storytelling and literature to environmental and treaty education? This book presents oral history as a form of education that can facilitate redress and reconciliation in the face of challenges, and bring about an awareness of historical knowledge to support action that addresses legacies of harm. Furthering the field on oral history and education, this work will appeal to academics, researchers and postgraduate students in the fields of social justice education, oral history, Indigenous education, curriculum studies, history of education, and social studies education. Review "We are living the consequences of settler-colonialism and the violence that was, and is still being, inflicted in the name of Canada. Oral History, Education, and Justice explores the generative possibilities of oral history in breaking collective silences, building reciprocal relationships, and furthering reconciliation. It is urgent work." Steven High, Professor, Concordia University, Canada, and author of Oral History at the Crossroads: Sharing Life Stories of Displacement and Survival "Bringing their intellectual commitments and offering insights from varied contexts, contributors to this volume take up the limits and possibilities of oral history, very broadly defined. From stories of personal and socio-culturally fraught pasts to the performance of oral tradition within a courtroom, each contributor adds a dimension to the pedagogical (im)possibilities that lie within discourses of redress and reconciliation. The collection posits ideas for thought, practice, and reflection at a time when teachers and their students are hungering for direction as they work to reconcile and redress the colonial legacies on which our lives have been built." Celia Haig-Brown, Professor, Faculty of Education, York University, Canada Winner of the 2021 Canadian Association of Foundations of Education Publication Award for Edited Book and the 2021 Society of Professors of Education Book Award About the Author Kristina R. Llewellyn is Associate Professor in the Department of Social Development Studies at Renison University College at the University of Waterloo, Canada. Nicholas Ng-A-Fook is a Professor of Curriculum Theory and the Director of the Teacher Education program at the University of Ottawa, Canada.