ABSTRACT

Autobiographies of childhood generally focus on narratives of nostalgia or trauma, depicting notions of lost innocence. This article posits that such a Global North perspective needs to be re-imagined when listening to the ‘self-stories’ of child soldiers from Colombia’s indigenous Nasa community in the Cauca region. They described their experiences of conflict in a series of narrative workshops located around the Tree of Love, (el árbol del amor)—a place where hopes and dreams are shared, its strength and constancy representing the resilience of the Nasa people in the face of violence. These shared narratives are presented as 4 chapters, each depicting a season, characterised by a different form of epiphany, constituting ‘liminal experiences connected to moments of … crisis’ [Denzin, N. K. 2017. Interpretive Autoethnography, Sage Research Methods Online. London: Sage. Accessed June 4, 2020. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781506374697, 52]. The article is presented in narrative style, enabling the researchers to stay close to the young child soldiers’ lives. Together these narrative extracts offer a mosaic of auto/biographical experiences that portray the journey from war child to child soldier to child survivor. The ability to resist re-recruitment in spaces that remain dangerous, where the cycle of violence is relentless, appears to be bolstered by an agency that comes from within, offering potential for post-traumatic growth.

摘要

童年自传通常侧重于怀旧或创伤的叙述，描绘失去纯真的概念。本文认为，在聆听来自哥伦比亚科卡地区美国宇航局土著社区的儿童兵的“自我故事”时，需要重新构想这种全球北方视角。他们在位于爱之树 (el árbol del amor) 周围的一系列叙事研讨会中描述了他们的冲突经历——这是一个分享希望和梦想的地方，它的力量和恒心代表了美国宇航局人民在面对暴力。这些共同的叙述被呈现为 4 个章节，每个章节描绘一个季节，以不同形式的顿悟为特征，构成“与……危机时刻相关的阈限体验”[Denzin, NK 2017。解释性自我民族志，Sage 在线研究方法。伦敦：圣人。2020 年 6 月 4 日访问。https://doi.org/10.4135/9781506374697, 52]。文章以叙述方式呈现，使研究人员能够贴近儿童兵的生活。这些叙述性的摘录一起提供了一系列自传/自传经历，描绘了从战争儿童到儿童士兵再到儿童幸存者的旅程。抵抗在仍然危险的空间中重新招募的能力，那里的暴力循环是无情的，似乎得到了一个来自内部的机构的支持，为创伤后的成长提供了潜力。