ABSTRACT
Oral History, Education, and Justice: Possibilities and Limitations for Redress and Reconciliation, edited by Kristina R. Llewellyn and Nicholas Ng-A-Fook, is a collection that addresses oral history as a form of education for redress and reconciliation. This collection provides, for the first time, scholarship that troubles both the possibilities and limitations of oral history in relation to the pedagogical and curricular redress of historical harms. The 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. Authors explore 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 survivor oral histories brought into conversation with youth who are wrestling with present injustices? How are oral histories about difficult knowledge represented in curriculum from digital storytelling and literature to environmental and treaty education? The authors speak to oral history as a hopeful, yet not taken-for-granted, pedagogy for addressing difficult knowledge. Ultimately, it is the hope of the editors that oral history as a form of education for redress and reconciliation can overcome the challenges it faces and bring about an awareness of historical knowledge to support action that addresses legacies of harm.
