Survivors of terrible events are often portrayed as unsung heroes or tragic victims but rarely as complex human beings whose lives extend beyond the stories they have told. The contributors to Beyond Testimony and Trauma consider other ways to engage with survivors and their accounts based on valuable insights gained from their work on long-term oral history projects. While the contexts vary widely, they demonstrate that through deep listening, long-term relationship building, and collaborative research design, it is possible to move beyond the problematic aspects of "testimony" to shine a light on the more nuanced lives of survivors of mass violence. About the Editor: Steven High is Professor and Canada Research Chair in Oral History at Concordia University in Montreal. He co-directs the Centre for Oral History and Digital Storytelling and was principal investigator of the Montreal Life Stories Project, a community-university research alliance that recorded the life stories of Montrealers displaced by war, genocide, and other human rights violations. He is the author of a number of books including Oral History at the Crossroads: Sharing Life Stories of Survival and Displacement (2014) and the co-editor of Remembering Mass Violence: Oral History, New Media and Performance (2013). |