Final Activity Report Summary - HISTCONS (Reflective historical consciousness in Norway and Germany - intercultural and generational aspects)
The HISTCONS project was interested in the processes of intercultural historical learning and the ways historical consciousness could become more self-reflective. The processes of historical learning and historical consciousness should be placed today in a local, national and transnational context, none the least within a European context. The case studies of the project were three bi-national, German and Norwegian, encounters dealing with the history of the Second World War and the Holocaust.
The Second World War is still a very vivid element in the history culture of both the Norwegian and German society and still remains an element of communicative and social memory. This means that memories are transmitted by oral sources as well as cultural representations, and that the narratives and interpretations still are negotiated and contested. This made the memories of the Second World War a good topic for bi-national seminars. The essential idea of HISTCONS was that bi-national history teaching was not only about getting to know the history of the other but also becoming more aware of the ways ones own images and interpretations of the past were constructed, culturally framed and limited.
Democratic societies have to educate their members in competent and critical ways of dealing with the past because history is such a powerful resource in political life and political culture. The legitimisation of political positions and programs, as well as the opposition and political contest always use references to the past in order to support their claims and create identifications. The ability to understand and critically judge historical narratives and interpretations is therefore crucial for participation in the civil society, being a pre-condition for active citizenship. HISTCONS had to be seen as an element of the development of European citizenship since trans-national narratives and uses of the past became more and more important in the process of European unification. However, the old national master narratives and the authoritative pedagogical ways to teach them could not just be replaced by European ones. What was necessary was to teach future citizens the way to participate in negotiations of the past on local, national and trans-national levels. This meant to being able to reflect on ones own images and interpretations in the light of the others effort to reflect on his own narratives.
The three case studies which were conducted in the HISTCONS project proved that bi-national encounters could contribute to a rising awareness about the ways in which local and national memory cultures influenced historical consciousness. The participants of all seminars became more competent in de-coding historical narratives and representations of the past, both regarding their own and the host countrys history culture. What was interesting, though, was the fact that, especially the younger participants of the seminars, met at the basis of denationalised, universalistic interpretations of the past. This became especially clear at a seminar dealing with perpetrators, were non Germans and non Norwegians were the basic categories of reference. The latter were anthropological and psychological categories of human evil or the disposition to be ideologically brain washed.
This led to the conclusion that historical learning processes had to deal with the participants complex and multi-layered predispositions of historical consciousness, influenced by national, local and families memory cultures as well as by universalistic or cosmopolitan narratives and interpretative frameworks.
The Second World War is still a very vivid element in the history culture of both the Norwegian and German society and still remains an element of communicative and social memory. This means that memories are transmitted by oral sources as well as cultural representations, and that the narratives and interpretations still are negotiated and contested. This made the memories of the Second World War a good topic for bi-national seminars. The essential idea of HISTCONS was that bi-national history teaching was not only about getting to know the history of the other but also becoming more aware of the ways ones own images and interpretations of the past were constructed, culturally framed and limited.
Democratic societies have to educate their members in competent and critical ways of dealing with the past because history is such a powerful resource in political life and political culture. The legitimisation of political positions and programs, as well as the opposition and political contest always use references to the past in order to support their claims and create identifications. The ability to understand and critically judge historical narratives and interpretations is therefore crucial for participation in the civil society, being a pre-condition for active citizenship. HISTCONS had to be seen as an element of the development of European citizenship since trans-national narratives and uses of the past became more and more important in the process of European unification. However, the old national master narratives and the authoritative pedagogical ways to teach them could not just be replaced by European ones. What was necessary was to teach future citizens the way to participate in negotiations of the past on local, national and trans-national levels. This meant to being able to reflect on ones own images and interpretations in the light of the others effort to reflect on his own narratives.
The three case studies which were conducted in the HISTCONS project proved that bi-national encounters could contribute to a rising awareness about the ways in which local and national memory cultures influenced historical consciousness. The participants of all seminars became more competent in de-coding historical narratives and representations of the past, both regarding their own and the host countrys history culture. What was interesting, though, was the fact that, especially the younger participants of the seminars, met at the basis of denationalised, universalistic interpretations of the past. This became especially clear at a seminar dealing with perpetrators, were non Germans and non Norwegians were the basic categories of reference. The latter were anthropological and psychological categories of human evil or the disposition to be ideologically brain washed.
This led to the conclusion that historical learning processes had to deal with the participants complex and multi-layered predispositions of historical consciousness, influenced by national, local and families memory cultures as well as by universalistic or cosmopolitan narratives and interpretative frameworks.