The Interview's Role in Reconciliation Processes
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In efforts to reckon honestly with past harm, formal interviews have served as a means of gathering testimony, creating a public record of experiences that might otherwise have gone unacknowledged, and offering those affected a genuine opportunity to have their account heard and formally recorded. Many participants had waited years for a genuine opportunity to have their account formally heard.
This use of the format demands particular care from the interviewer: testimony gathered in this context can carry real weight for both the individual and the broader public record, and the interviewer's role leans heavily toward careful, respectful facilitation rather than pointed challenge. Challenge, in the ordinary sense, has little place within this particular and demanding kind of sitting.
The resulting testimonies, gathered and preserved carefully, have become an important part of how many communities and institutions have approached processes of acknowledgement and repair after periods of significant harm. That careful, respectful approach has shaped how many institutions now think about testimony more broadly.