The complexity of family history in shaping perceptions

By Parthivi Mariwala

Main Street in Prishtina, where we conducted our interviews

Our group project focused on the role of education, more specifically, the history education, within peacebuilding and identity formation in Kosovo. During our ten days in Kosovo, we took some time to interview passers-by and people from the organizations we had visited to understand what they were taught about their history and if that influenced their perceptions today. 

Education in Kosovo is segregated, so we were interested in determining if this played a role in framing perceptions. Our final project was a documentary to capture the different voices and stories we heard. Thanks to the twelve people we interviewed, we learned that history education is not only taught through institutions, but the family and the media also play a significant role in shaping what people learn and their perceptions. Family and media determine their experiences and what they believe to be accurate. We had the opportunity to speak to Kosovar Serbs and Kosovar Albanians, and through this, I began to understand the importance of family in shaping perceptions.

The role of family was expressed through the war memories and the violence they had endured. Even though they hadn’t been through it personally, the people we spoke with told stories passed on from their families as if the war memories were still very fresh. They remember the people who have gone missing on both sides, the people who were killed, and the mass violence that ensued. One of the primary-school teachers talked about her aunt’s mother, who was murdered during the war. Or people remember growing up in a post-war society working on rebuilding. However, the role of the family is not always negative. Despite segregated educational systems, we spoke to a representative from the New Social Initiative in North Mitrovica, who had neighbors from different ethnicities and was taught to treat them with respect. Nonetheless, she was still afraid to cross the Mitrovica bridge separating the Kosovo Serbians and Kosovo Albanians.

 

Listening to these individual stories, I realized that there is a mutual fear of the violence that occurred in 1999, and people are scared to relive that again. The role of the family is also important because it shows how recent the war is not just in memory, but many people who suffered are still alive today and were personally impacted by the war. Thus, talking about reconciliation or peacebuilding naturally isn’t on their minds. Their main aim is peace and a better educational system to have more opportunities and a better quality of life. I understood this when we asked questions as well. The idea of reconciliation between the two communities came from us and what I had learned, but it isn’t necessarily what the communities would want.

 

Nonetheless, listening to these stories and understanding the role of the family in shaping perceptions and what these people have suffered in Kosovo is integral to understanding why the educational systems are still separate and why reconciliation practices are not the first step. Instead, the first step must be acknowledging these past grievances while making space for a future that removes some of the prejudice.