Into
Which Narrative
Was I Born?
Challenging the inevitability of conflict
As polarisation grows across the world, I am interested in beginnings. How did you first learn about and make sense of what you know? Where does this knowledge initially come from, and how does it shape your view of 'us' and 'others'? Where do the narratives of 'others' come from?
This platform brings together personal recollections of learning about history in different countries, as entry points for contemplating and challenging conflict. I edit and arrange these experiences as condensed sound-collages, inviting active, mindful listening. The purposeful variations in pitch and tone, and the overlapping voices question what we listen for, hear and understand about ourselves and 'others'.
Would you like to contribute to this conversation? Write to me at IntoWhichNarrativeWasIBorn@gmail.com
Born and raised in Serbia, Nemanja Joković recounts the sense of safety, national belonging and “uneasiness” that his elementary school History education stirred in him. As he travels across the border to meet the "others" from History textbooks, he struggles to connect with one of them. (00:07:53)
A conversation with Henry Thomas, whose family members served on opposite sides during World War II. Thomas recounts the conflicting fragments of knowledge and values that he grew up with in the immediate aftermath of the war and his reckoning, as a teenager, with the full scope of the Holocaust. (00:21:15)
Since primary school, Marilena Karoulla and Su Acar were educated to fear each other’s people. Coming from a Greek-speaking and a Turkish-speaking background on the island of Cyprus, why and how did they eventually begin to trust one another? (00:09:26)
A conversation with Sofija Todorović, director of an NGO seeking the removal of street depictions of convicted war criminals across Serbia. Speaking in the Serbian language, Todorović ponders the origins of why she thinks differently than many of her fellow citizens, about war crimes committed during 1990s in former Yugoslavia. (00:05:31)
© Mirna Jancic Doyle
Contact: IntoWhichNarrativeWasIBorn@gmail.com