Subalterns can speak

Some reflections on history and memory from a pedagogical experience

Abstract

In this paper we propose to reflect on the possibilities, limits and challenges that arise in teaching practice when young people from subaltern sectors undertake the task of writing their own stories. This pedagogical experience has been developed within the framework of the Program for Indigenous Peoples and Rural Schools of the UNCuyo. We consider that the collective memory of the subaltern sectors is characterized by the fragmentary and discontinuous, however, it sometimes tries to find spaces to express itself and stress the official history. In that direction, on this occasion we decided to turn our curricular spaces into areas for that reflection -personal and collective- in which subaltern people (paraphrasing the Indian philosopher Gayatri Spivak) “could speak”.