En historias me quedo: narrativas familiares del conflicto armado colombiano en el Huila

Abstract

This study examines the reconstruction of historical memory of the armed conflict in Huila through family narratives, demonstrating how engagement with lived experiences can transform students’ distant perceptions of the conflict into a critical, human-centered, and territorially grounded understanding. Employing a participatory Educational Action Research (EAR) approach, tenth-grade students assumed the role of co-researchers, actively conducting interviews with older family members, and producing journalistic chronicles based on these testimonies. The findings reveal a collective learning process characterized by a shift from a decontextualized “official history” toward a “lived memory” that restores dignity to voices historically marginalized from dominant narratives. The process reactivated intergenerational dialogue within families, enabling students to recognize themselves as historical subjects and active participants in memory construction. Their sustained involvement transformed conventional educational practices into a ‘sentipensante’ pedagogy that integrates critical reflection with emotional engagement using writing as a tool for symbolic justice, contributing to the reconstruction of social bonds and the strengthening of collective memory from within the classroom.