Learning to listen differently: Witnessing survivor testimony and implications for ethical responses

Date
2023-07
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Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research, University of Regina
Abstract

During the Educators for Solidarity Initiative in 2017, participants bore witness to survivor testimony about the 1981 massacre that took place on the banks of the Rio Lempa in El Salvador. It is the experience of bearing witness to survivor testimony with participants who accompanied me on this journey, whose affective responses, unsettlement, and understanding of settler responsibilities are at the center of this study. Explored through autoethnography and life writing methodologies this qualitative study aimed to answer the central research question: “Does the act of witnessing survivor testimony at the Rio Lempa impact the obligations of (settler) witnessing and ethical responses? If so, in what ways?” Data analysis of the affective and ethical responses to bearing witness to survivor testimony of four white, settler women revealed that the participants were address-able and response-able to the story/teller. The act of witnessing survivor testimony at the Rio Lempa impacted the obligations of (settler) witnessing and ethical responses. The ethical responses to witnessing survivor testimony involved: acknowledgement, remembrance, recognition that the testimony was of consequence, retestifying, cultivating relationships, affective learning, critical empathy, listening with humility and vulnerability. Witnessing testimony abroad increased these settler participant’s capacity to become more relational towards Indian Residential School survivor testimony as they continue to interrogate their response-ability in relation to Indigenous peoples.

Description
A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Education in Curriculum and Instruction, University of Regina. viii, 158 p.
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