The Pedagogical Possibilities of Witnessing and Testimonies: Through the Lens of Agamben seeks to investigate the pedagogical possibilities in a complex phenomenon; what Giorgio Agamben calls ‘the impossible testimony’ (2008). In this book I investigate three different aspects of witnessing and testimony. First, I examine the pedagogical possibilities in relation to the problem of representation. In particular, in relation to the representations of different historical wounds that enter teaching, such as the example of the images from Collateral Murder (Wikileaks 2010) that opened this book. Second, I examine how witnessing can take place as a process of subjectivation and how witnessing can create change. Third, I examine the role that students’ and teachers’ emotions can have when exposed to testimonies within teaching. I chose to focus on these aspects based on how testimony is used in teaching and how educational philosophy has understood and examined witnessing and testimony in the context of teaching. In this introductory chapter I will situate the argument of the book within previous research, as well as discuss the theoretical and the methodological background of what follows.
The Use of Testimony in Teaching: Framing the Argument
There is a great interest in testimonies currently, both in society at large and as a theoretical concept within educational research, as a way to understand and develop epistemological, political or ethical thinking. Anat Ascher writes that, if the 1900s can be understood as the century of the witness, the 2000s tend to have a similar spirit, in that “the word of the witness is to be found virtually everywhere” (Ascher 2011, p. 1). The interest in testimony is also found in the framework for teaching. Ann Chinnery (2011) writes that there has been a change in the teaching of historical traumas; there is now a tendency to move the focus away from facts about historical events towards personal stories about those events. Within the framework of this change, testimonies become the central focus in order to develop a so-called historical consciousness, an ethical approach to historical events.
An example of this central use of testimony in relation to the dealing with historical trauma is the work of The Living History Forum in Stockholm. In their work they foreground testimony on historical trauma through exhibitions, movie clips, stories and books of personal narratives.
Their website, under the tab “Testimony with classroom exercises”, says:
The Living History Forum describes how sharing various testimonies from, among others, communist regimes against humanity, the Holocaust, the genocide in Rwanda, minority abuses, can elicit feelings and insights about the suffering. Those emotions and insights can then be a starting point for reflection on and discussion of issues that specifically concern democracy, human rights and tolerance. The idea is that the encounter with testimony can lead not only to knowledge of historical events but also become a basis for reflection and discussion and, in the long run, prevent intolerance. Thus, at The Living History Forum there are statements about the witnesses’ ability to create change by offering insights into events that may not happen again and the lessons that can be drawn from those insights. In this context, the statements also highlight emotions as a way of dealing with historical wounds. That is, how being emotionally affected by knowledge of historical suffering may invoke students to take action for tolerance and human rights.Taking part in other people’s experiences can awaken feelings and lead to insights about past events and events in our history that must never happen again. When students get together to share movie clips containing personal testimonies, a starting point is created for reflection and discussion.1
The work of Swedish public authority The Living History Forum is an example of the use of testimonies in the teaching of traumatic historical events. It utilizes personal stories about the Holocaust and other crimes against humanity as the starting point of its objective “to work with issues on tolerance, democracy, and human rights” (The Living History Forum ). To achieve their stated mission, the forum has compiled historical testimonies that can be used as teaching materials by schools. One example of this is the book, Tell ye your children … (Bruchfeld and Levine 1998), which I was handed as a pupil in secondary school during the 90’s. The book was commissioned by the Swedish government as a way of providing public information and was distributed free of charge to school children in Sweden. The forum and the book can be seen to mark the aforementioned shift of focus in education towards remembrance work in schools and beyond, based on the idea that the wounds of history have something to teach us. (For a discussion on this book, see Hållander 2015, 2017). Therefore different pedagogical and didactical reasons can be offered to explain why teachers use testimonies to impart history lessons (Hållander 2015).
Educational Research on Testimony and Pedagogy
Educational research offers a number of theories and understandings of how the use of testimony in teaching can enable students to develop positive values, such as a historical consciousness or an ethical approach to the world and other people, or how being exposed to various testimonies could bring about particular feelings and emotions—or even crises (see, for example, Simon 2005; Simon and Eppert 1997; Felman and Laub 1992). These feelings or crises can be a starting point for dealing with historical traumas, and through that be the basis for historical knowledge, including understanding of those different from oneself and/or from other parts of the world. This is also stressed by The Living History Forum. Testimonies carry the idea of being singular and of being “true” stories. Thus, to expose students and pupils to testimonies is seen to be of value when considering historical trauma and attempting to bring consciousness and personal ethical reflection to the issue.
Numerous researchers have examined the use of testimony and the function of the witness in educational relationships and in teaching. Shoshana Felman and Dori Laub’s work, Testimony: Crises of Witnessing in Literature, Psychoanalysis and History (1992), is particularly influential. It elucidates the teaching potential of reading historical testimonies as a form of literature. Their work, founded in literary theory and psychoanalysis, has greatly influenced subsequent analyses of the evidence in both philosophical, literary and pedagogical research. Felman and Laub write how the encounter with literary testimonies can create a learning situation in which, by being emotio...