Narrative justice? Ten tools to deconstruct narratives about violent pasts

Abstract

Bermudez argues that for history education to contribute to the advancement of historical justice, teachers must deconstruct historical narratives that normalize violence, and help students develop a critical understanding of the violent past. These tasks, she claims, require an unusual integration of disciplined historical inquiry and ethical reflection. This vision of history education is discussed against the backdrop of ongoing debates about what are legitimate goals of history education, particularly in current literature on the development of historical thinking skills and historical consciousness. The theoretical argument is then operationalized in the proposal of ten narrative keys that offer analytic tools to critically examine representations of the violent past conveyed through formal and non-formal history education.