Doing memory with needle and thread : narrating transformations of violent conflict

Abstract

The two authors embark on a conversation about how textiles open up space for different kinds of storytelling — understood as central to interpretive research — about violence, memory and transformation in the aftermath of armed conflict. They draw on their respective research and experiences in the context of the armed conflict and fragile peace process in Colombia, where Roxani investigates the politics and hierarchies of victimhood, and Berit is involved in a project that combines narrative practice and textile narratives into a methodology to explore former guerrilla combatants’ subjectivities and wider society’s resonances to their preferred stories. Photos of textiles and textile-making accompany their conversation.