Culture and its Uses as Testimony

文化及其作为见证的用途

• 批准号: AH/N008774/1
• 负责人: Sara Jones
• 金额: $ 4.45万
• 依托单位: University of Birmingham
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2016
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2016 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=AH%2FN008774%2F1
• 关键词: Culture; its; Uses; Testimony

This network examines the role of culture in societies that are seeking to come to terms with traumatic pasts. In such societies culture is one medium through which individuals and groups present their experiences to a broad public as a form of testimony. We understand cultural forms of testimony to include autobiographical accounts, novels, diaries, letters, memoirs, films, theatre, works of art, and documentaries. The network explores how cultural testimony can enrich public debate about past and present injustice, but it also explores how it is instrumentalised for narrow political purposes.The network is innovative because it brings together researchers from the fields of history, political science and international relations, law, sociology, and those working on culture, literature, film and museums in a variety of national and transnational contexts. Researchers also work alongside practitioners who are core members of the network. These include a novelist, documentary theatre company, representatives from the National Holocaust Centre and the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, members of expert commissions, and teachers.We are primarily concerned with cultural testimony and the ways in which it is received and put to use. Of particular interest is the role that it can play in overcoming divisions in societies marked by war, genocide and authoritarian rule. The writing and recording of testimony in a range of forms play an increasingly significant role in civil society initiatives that seek to establish the norms for justice that are not restricted to legal procedures. This is seen most markedly in efforts to conserve and transmit memory of the Holocaust for and to future generations, for example the extensive use of eyewitness testimony at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. These approaches to remembering the victims of National Socialism and fascism are drawn upon in cultural responses to authoritarianism across the globe. The network members and their case studies come from diverse cultural contexts in the UK, Ireland, Germany, Romania, Albania, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, Cuba, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Argentina, South Africa and Rwanda. The network thus provides opportunities for scholars with different understandings of testimony to collaborate and to produce new insights into how culture functions as testimony as societies attempt to come to terms with their past. As the production of testimony in cultural forms is a global phenomenon, international collaboration is a core part of the network. This is also reflected in the constitution of the network's steering group.The network establishes why victims, perpetrators and memory activists turn to first person forms of expression as they strive for justice and reconciliation. Used thoughtfully, the testimony of culturally complex sources can open up new directions for research that cut across generalisations about the past and simplistic divisions of the population into perpetrators and victims. Used in a fragmentary, unreflective or tendentious manner, this same testimony can be hijacked to support pre-existing political positions. In the 'age of the eyewitness' (Wieviorka, 2006) the network identifies the particular characteristics of culture as testimony, and it discusses how we can analyse and benefit from these sources.The network's three workshops on the range and function of testimony in cultural forms, methodological approaches to the use of cultural forms of testimony in understanding the past, and the politics of culture as testimony are followed by a high-profile international conference. The research is further disseminated via a network website and linked social media, two half-day schools' workshops, teaching materials, and publications including an interdisciplinary handbook on Culture and its Uses as Testimony.

该网络研究了文化在寻求与创伤过去相处的社会中的作用。在这样的社会中，文化是一种媒介，个人和群体作为一种证词形式向广泛的公众展示他们的经验。我们了解证词的文化形式，包括自传账户，小说，日记，信件，回忆录，电影，戏剧，艺术品和纪录片。该网络探讨了文化证词如何丰富有关过去和现在不公的公众辩论，但它还探讨了它是如何出于狭窄的政治目的而工具性的。该网络具有创新性，因为它将历史，政治科学和国际关系，法律，社会学以及从事文化，文学，文学，电影，电影和多样性的国民和变性背景的研究人员汇集了研究人员。研究人员还与网络核心成员一起工作。其中包括一家小说家，纪录片公司，国家大屠杀中心的代表和美国大屠杀纪念博物馆，专家委员会成员和教师。我们主要关注文化证词以及收到和使用的方式。特别有趣的是它在克服战争，种族灭绝和威权统治以克服社会中的分裂中所起的作用。在一系列形式的证词的写作和记录中在民间社会倡议中起着越来越重要的作用，这些倡议试图建立不限于法律程序的正义规范。这是为了保护和传递对子孙后代的大屠杀的记忆，例如在美国大屠杀纪念博物馆广泛使用目击者证词的努力。这些记忆民族社会主义和法西斯主义受害者的方法在全球对威权主义的文化回应中得到了借鉴。网络成员及其案例研究来自英国，爱尔兰，德国，罗马尼亚，阿尔巴尼亚，匈牙利，波兰，斯洛伐克，古巴，墨西哥，波多黎各，阿根廷，阿根廷，南非，南非和卢旺达的各种文化背景。因此，该网络为对证词有不同理解的学者提供了机会，以合作，并提供新的见解，以了解文化如何在社会试图与他们的过去相处融洽的证词。由于文化形式的证词的产生是一种全球现象，因此国际合作是该网络的核心部分。这也反映在网络转向组的构成中。网络确定了为什么受害者，肇事者和记忆活动家在努力争取正义与和解时转向第一人称表达形式。若有所思地使用的是，文化复杂来源的证词可以为研究开辟新的方向，这些方向跨越了人们对肇事者和受害者的过去和简单划分的概括。可以劫持相同的证词以零碎，不反思或倾向的方式使用，以支持先前存在的政治立场。在“目击者的时代”（Wieviorka，2006年）中，网络将文化的特定特征确定为证词，并讨论了我们如何分析和受益于这些来源。网络关于文化形式的证词范围和功能的三个研讨会，在文化形式中，将文化形式用于以前的文化形式的方法，以概述了文化的范围，并以文化为基础是文化的范围。这项研究通过网络网站和链接的社交媒体，两个半天的学校讲习班，教材和出版物进行了进一步传播，包括文化及其用途作为证词的跨学科手册。

项目成果

Auschwitz 75 years on: preserving survivor's voices and listening to those of their children

奥斯维辛集中营 75 周年：保护幸存者的声音并倾听他们孩子的声音

• 发表时间: 2020
• 作者: Jones S.

Testimony and its Mediations in Life Writing

传记写作中的见证及其中介

• DOI: 10.1080/14484528.2021.1873718
• 发表时间: 2021
• 期刊: Life Writing
• 影响因子: 0.4
• 作者: Woods R

The Palgrave Handbook of Testimony and Culture

帕尔格雷夫证词与文化手册

• DOI: 10.1007/978-3-031-13794-5_1
• 发表时间: 2023
• 作者: Jones S

How we can ensure Holocaust survivors continue to be heard

我们如何确保大屠杀幸存者的声音继续得到倾听

• 发表时间: 2020
• 作者: Jones S.

Testimony through culture: towards a theoretical framework

通过文化见证：迈向理论框架

• DOI: 10.1080/13642529.2019.1620909
• 发表时间: 2019
• 期刊: Rethinking History
• 影响因子: 0.6
• 作者: Jones S