Negotiating conflict through digital storytelling: post-genocide reconciliation and peace education in Rwanda

Abstract

Many studies show that digital storytelling is a promising tool for education since it helps student understand new concepts and complex issues through its interactive, participatory and immersive techniques. As a result, using digital storytelling in peace education, which serves as an alternative for tackling important issues such as reconciliation and healing process, can be of important value for post-conflict societies. Given the limited amount of research on peace education through digital storytelling in Rwanda, this research proposal aims at analysing in which ways and to what extent digital storytelling can be used for direct and indirect peace education among Rwandan students aged between 13 and 18. In line with this purpose, seven transmedia and multimedia projects related to the Rwandan, Bosnian, Guatemalan and Cambodian genocide have been selected in order to examine the post-conflict reconciliation narratives. Additionally, these projects will be used in the workshops designed to understand students’ interaction with stories and their approach to the use of digital storytelling in peace education. The outcomes of this research will provide a guideline for the implementation of digital storytelling in peace education with the aim of facilitating post-conflict reconciliation.