Testimonial narratives, truth commissions, and counter-pedagogies of violence in Colombia and Peru

Abstract

Abstract

Truth Commissions (TCs) have become a vital instrument of global transitional justice, where testimonial narratives play a central role in truth-seeking and collective memory. While these processes contribute to the recognition of victims’ experiences, the way TCs engage with testimonial narratives reveals significant limitations: trapping communities in cycles of re-telling, deploying reductive categories, and flattening the temporal complexities of violence. This paper argues that by exploring how local communities work with testimonial narratives, we can see alternative pedagogies of memory and violence that challenge these institutional constraints. Drawing on a local museum in Putumayo, Colombia, and the HIJXS de Perú collective (originally an acronym translated to ‘Sons and Daughters for Identity and Justice, against Oblivion and Silence’), we argue that these practices become powerful counter-pedagogies of violence that foster nuanced understandings through creativity, community-making, and new modes of re-existence.