Paper short abstract:

This paper, based on thirteen months of interviews in northern Nicaragua, explores the ethical and epistemological difficulties of representing interviewees’ diametrically opposed views of the Contra War, and asks what a ‘radical history’ approach to interviewing might look like.

Paper long abstract:

The development of oral history is closely allied with radicalism, and the impulse to rescue the voices of those excluded from traditional historical accounts. This tradition emphasizes the empowerment of the interviewee via an attempt at faithful representation of their lived experience and their interpretation of it. But how does this approach translate to work in areas of conflict and post-conflict, where the trauma of war inevitably generates multiple opposing accounts of the past?

This paper explores the ethical and epistemological dilemmas which arose in the course of thirteen months of fieldwork in northern Nicaragua. Ex-combatants and victims of the Contra War, on all sides of the conflict were interviewed. Many former Sandinistas now actively repudiate the actions of the current and former Sandinista government, whilst others situate their memories firmly within a narrative of continuing revolution. This paper asks how we negotiate and define what 'engaged' scholarship means in the context of this kind of controversy.