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The Importance of Storytelling for Peace-Building in Post-Conflict States. Jan Stewart, University of Winnipeg Marc Kuly , Winnipeg School Division. Children and Conflict. In a fractured age, where cynicism is god, here is a possible heresy: We live by stories; we also live in them…
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The Importance of Storytelling for Peace-Building in Post-Conflict States Jan Stewart, University of Winnipeg Marc Kuly, Winnipeg School Division
Children and Conflict In a fractured age, where cynicism is god, here is a possible heresy: We live by stories; we also live in them… We live stories that either give our life meaning or negate it with meaninglessness. If we change the stories we live by, quite possibly we change our lives. Ben Okri, in Thomas King’s Truth about Stories, 2003
Research Purposes • Collaborate with researchers in Uganda to develop best practices and teaching resources to support children who have been affected by war. • Explore the common needs between our North American and African contexts.
Research Questions • What are the major needs of war-affected children in northern Uganda? • What are challenges to the educational community in addressing these needs? • How might educators more effectively respond to the psychosocial and educational needs of children who have been affected by war?
Research Design, Method, & Analysis • Individual interviews and focus group interviews • 240 participants from northern Uganda • Interviews were intended to capture how the participants defined their experiences and constructed their post-war reality • Data was analyzed for themes and trends, coded and interpreted within the context of its collection
Findings and Discussion: Storytelling • Story emerged as an overarching and connecting theme in the data • Storytelling – in a variety of forms and contexts – was a means to: • connect the community • educate children • sustain culture • heal from the effects of trauma
Forms and Contexts • Expressive Cultural Arts • Mass Media • Traditional Culture • Healing, Therapy, and Personal Counselling
Storytelling: Expressive Cultural Arts • Includes Music, Dance, Drama, & Visual Arts • Occur in school and NGO settings • Redevelop children’s understanding of cultural connection, community connection and friendship
Dance and Story And normally all our different dances have their, their what? - their meanings attached, and there is something very particular that, you know, normally you gain insight, you know….So it's a way of helping people come back to their normal routine, look at themselves still positively, and still discover something they are able to do.
Storytelling: Mass Media • Radio is a powerful and pervasive medium • Affordable and Accessible • Storytelling included Radio Wang-Oo’s, Talk Shows and Come Home Shows • Anonymity of the medium allows children to ask questions they might not in person • Virtual community acted as a first step towards reunifying communities
Storytelling: Mass Media It was so good. People were so attentive. We used to give them a call back. “Can you advise these children?” And people used to say, now that you have come home please don’t think of going back.” They hear what they had been through. The children would say, “No I don’t want to go back, I want to be sent to school, to technical school” and that sort of thing….These people who came from outside wanted assurance. They would not be mocked, mishandled, they would not be mistreated. So when we invited call back people, they were calling back telling, there is no problem, we have forgotten all the problems.
The wang – Oo • You know in our culture here, storytelling is something very accepted and practiced. Almost in every family, everyone will always sing and tell stories. We used to be there together around the fire before the war. But then the war made everyone not have one, because of insecurity. But now it is coming back, at late in the dusk, by around seven o’clock everyone gathers, the old ones of the family come and tell stories to their children and everyone listens till the end. They pose a question to the audience and then they try to get answers for themselves. There is a lesson in this story.
Storytelling: Healing, Therapy, & Personal Counselling • “Pictorial Presentations” • “Disassociation” • Well, to me, when somebody talks about the bad experience, then he or she reaches some point where it becomes easy then that person has healed. If it is not easy then he is still in the process of healing. When the child reaches that level of confidence, when they can speak freely, and they don’t become uneasy, uneasy means they have not reached a high level of healing.
Conclusions • Stories use empathy to communicate culture and knowledge through cognitive and affective domains • Stories foster an invitation to create new meanings where old ideas have kept people down and apart • Stories can create spaces wherein people are welcome to share similarities and acknowledge differences. • Storytelling is a key means by which people come to adjust or alter their understanding of themselves in relation to their ecological systems and therefore find a path to healing.
