Relational Witnessing: On Translation and Pedagogical Transformation

• In Event: Roundtable Session 44
  In Roundtable Session: Narratives of Teachers and Students

Abstract

How can pedagogical transformation be understood in relation to the phenomenon of witnessing? Testimonies are often seen as a form of speaking that comes out of oppression, where a person bearing witness tells the story to someone else, who then publishes the text elsewhere; an act that tends to separate the process and the product; separate the witness from the testimony. Through a discussion on Sara Lidman’s book Gruva (Mine, 1967) and documents on the wildcat strike in Svappavaara, Sweden, the paper wants to discuss pedagogical aspects of witnessing and translation and stress a relational view on witnessing which does not separate the process from the product; where the process of a relational witnessing can demand change and incorporate it.

Author

• Marie Hållander, Stockholm University - Stockholm, Sweden