Why certain narratives do not belong in the classroom : difficult and dangerous history in South Sudan

Abstract

There is a scholarly consensus that addressing past conflicts within education is an essential ingredient in justice and reconciliation processes. In newly independent South Sudan, an unstable political context ravaged by protracted civil war, it is debatable whether and how difficult history could or should be addressed. Against the backdrop of introducing the country’s first history textbooks, this article explores students’ perspectives on recent and ongoing conflicts in South Sudan at the time of their publication. Drawing on student essays and theories of difficult history, our analysis examines the nature of difficult histories circulating among young people. It uncovers the multiple perspectives deriving from unofficial histories that may be at teachers’ disposal in the classroom, centering on those that relate to internal divisions and mutual victimization in the past and the present. We argue that these sensitive topics have the potential to challenge the official history of ‘unity in resistance,’ dominating both textbooks and classroom teaching. In uncovering difficult and often dangerous history, we contribute to a theorization of why such narratives do not belong in the classroom in a politically fragile environment.