Culture and its Uses as Testimony

这个网络考察了文化在寻求与创伤过去达成妥协的社会中的作用。在这样的社会中，文化是个人和团体向广大公众展示他们的经历的一种媒介，作为一种见证形式。我们了解文化形式的证词，包括自传体故事、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公众对过去和现在不公正的辩论，但也探索了它如何被用于狭隘的政治目的。网络之所以创新，是因为它汇集了来自历史、政治学和国际关系、法律、社会学领域的研究人员，以及在各种国家和跨国背景下从事文化、文学、电影和博物馆工作的人。研究人员还与该网络的核心成员从业者一起工作。这些人包括小说家、纪录片剧团、国家大屠杀中心和美国大屠杀纪念馆的代表、专家委员会成员和教师。我们主要关注文化见证以及它的接收和使用方式。尤其令人感兴趣的是，它可以在克服以战争、种族灭绝和独裁统治为标志的社会中的分裂方面发挥作用。撰写和记录各种形式的证词在民间社会的倡议中发挥着越来越重要的作用，这些倡议寻求建立不限于法律程序的司法规范。这一点在为子孙后代保存和传递大屠杀记忆的努力中表现得最为明显，例如在美国大屠杀纪念馆广泛使用目击者证词。这些纪念国家社会主义和法西斯主义受害者的方法被借鉴到全球各地对威权主义的文化回应中。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、南非和卢旺达的不同文化背景。因此，该网络为对证词有不同理解的学者提供了合作的机会，并在社会试图与其过去达成妥协时，就文化如何作为证词提供新的见解。由于以文化形式制作证词是一种全球现象，国际合作是该网络的核心部分。该网络指导小组的组成也反映了这一点。该网络确立了为什么受害者、肇事者和记忆活动家在争取正义与和解时转向第一人称表达形式。经过深思熟虑地使用，文化上复杂的来源的证词可以为研究开辟新的方向，这些研究跨越了对过去的概括和对人口按肇事者和受害者的简单化划分。以支离破碎、未经深思熟虑或有倾向性的方式使用，同样的证词可能会被劫持，以支持先前存在的政治立场。在《目击者时代》(Wieviorka，2006)中，网络将文化的特殊特征确定为证词，并讨论了我们如何分析这些来源并从中受益。网络举办了三个讲习班，分别是关于文化形式证词的范围和作用、使用文化证词形式了解过去的方法论方法以及作为证词的文化政治，随后举行了一次引人注目的国际会议。这项研究通过一个网络网站和链接的社交媒体、两个半日制学校的讲习班、教材和出版物进一步传播，其中包括一本关于文化及其作为证据的使用的跨学科手册。

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.