Negotiating (Im)Possible Life Stories - Collaborative Storytelling in (Post)Conflict Contexts

Child soldiers in post-conflict societies are among the most vulnerable groups, marked by experiences of extreme violence and subsequent social exclusion. Their voices are often silenced, limiting their ability to participate socially. The dual experience of trauma, both as victims and perpetrators of violence, disrupts their capacity to tell their life stories, while social stigmatization in post-conflict societies reinforces this dynamic of silence.

In an exploratory qualitative research project with former child soldiers of the Islamic State (IS) in Iraq, we developed a participatory, trauma-sensitive, and culturally attuned approach to address these challenges. Using collaborative storytelling, a group of former IS child soldiers co-created a fictional life story of a child soldier over a sustained period. This method aimed to support both biographical articulation and collective meaning-making.

Our presentation introduces the project, outlines the methodology, and presents key findings, by highlighting how mechanisms of biographization intertwine with collaborative storytelling processes. While individual biographical experiences are negotiated within the group’s fictional narrative, they are simultaneously distanced through the process of fictionalization. This method also reveals the boundaries of what can be thematized, pointing to the limitations of socially acceptable biographical work.

Additionally, we explore the potential of art-based methods, particularly collaborative drawing, as a means to visually express and counter this enforced silence. We argue that these creative methods provide a space for articulating trauma in a way that is both socially transformative and emotionally sensitive.

Collaborative storytelling is presented as an innovative biographical research method to methodologically translate and socio-politically transform trauma into testimony. We see their particular strength in the production of counter-narratives to socially powerful attributions and practices of silencing. They open up spaces for discourse that make biographical work possible in the first place.