Challenge History Summer School Mostar

The summer school gathered high-school students from the western Balkans and over the course of 11 modules in one week, gave them the opportunity to critically examine and questions of belonging and identity, historical figures, learning and teaching history, culture of remembering and many more.  

The modules of the school dealt with various topics, i.e. identity and inter-group relations in post conflict societies, contrasting history, a workshop on Partisan memorials, legacies with potential for reconciliation, common historical experiences in the 20^th century of the Western Balkans, etc. The participants were asked to evaluate the summer school and everyone stated that they enjoyed learning history with a multi-perspective approach.

As nationalist historical narratives and images of the “other” and missing critical understandings of the different contexts, in this case the Western Balkans, perpetuate more conflict all participants agreed that such an approach of networking and learning is of great importance for the future generations of the Western Balkans. In view of this, the Challenge History summer school is aiming towards creating a transnational access to history for youths from the region.