Luchs, Michele, and Elizabeth Miller. "’On Tour with Mapping Memories: Sharing Refugee Youth Stories in Montreal Classrooms." In Beyond Testimony and Trauma: Oral History in the Aftermath of Mass Violence, edited by Steven High, 235-53. Vancouver: UBC Press, 2015.
Luchs and Miller worked with refugee youth in the Mapping Memories project in Montreal. For five years the group collaborated on creating digital stories; this chapter looks at the last phase of this partnership: a tour of 30 Montreal high schools by some team members from Rwanda, Zimbabwe, Congo, Syria, and Palestine, particularly focusing on three from Rwanda and Zimbabwe. Those involved reflected on the challenges and rewards of sharing their stories with the wider public for the first time. One of the key aspects that the group analyzed was “how digital life stories and peer dialogue about refugee experiences can be ethically engaged in the education of students” and how to present this educational outreach most effectively. A particular concern was how the young presenters would be impacted by sharing their stories, as well as how the authors tried to best care for and collaborate with their team members, which usually involved “stepping aside but staying present.”