MF CASR Lunch with Merethe Skårås

(De)normalization of violence in textbooks in the Middle Nile Valley

During the talk, Merethe Skårås will present the theoretical framework and some initial findings from examining contemporary history textbooks in Ethiopia and South Sudan as part of the first work package in the JUSTHIS project. She will therefore present Angela Bermudez ten narrative keys, which describe discursive mechanisms in the representation of violence in narratives about violent pasts. In this work, narratives of violent pasts are considered to include difficult history topics; however, it is at the heart of the project to also explore what difficult history topics constitute in different contexts. The textbook analysis will be used as a baseline for entering classrooms. One initial finding is that the South Sudan textbook presents a differential normalization of violence based on actors and groups and the position of violence within the broader history.