“Speaking to One Another?” Lessons Learnt from the First Collaborative Oral History Project between Armenia and Turkey

In this presentation, I will discuss the backstory of the project “Speaking to One Another,” focusing on the process and the experience as well as the research results. Initiated in 2009 by dvv international, the German youth and adult education association, the goal of this project was to bring together social scientists and university students from Armenia and Turkey to conduct oral history research and collaborate on a website, traveling exhibition, film, and book to contribute to the process of reconciliation between the two countries. The project, which was completed in 2013, proved quite challenging for a variety of reasons. Some of these challenges were associated with the nature of the research itself, such as interviewing individuals in Turkey on the topic of remembering Armenians, or attempting to collaborate on an exhibition, film, and book addressed to a public in both Armenia and in Turkey. Other challenges stemmed from the actual encounter between social scientists and youth from Armenia on the one hand, and social scientists and youth from Turkey on the other. I will reflect on the ways participants in this international interdisciplinary project attempted to surmount these challenges and reflect on the lessons learnt from reconciliation projects such as this one which attempted to combine academic oral history research, youth education, public outreach and political aims.