The Experts on the Past: Scholar-Experts, Victim-Experts, and Attributions of Expertise in Memory Sites

Abstract Post-conflict memorialization efforts exacerbate disputes over who is authorized to speak about the past. Through the case of museum and memorial sites in Colombia, this article examines how expertise on the past is enacted and perceived in a post-conflict context. Bringing together qualitative data from observations of school trips and other daily activities to two memory sites, as well as focus groups with students and interviews with teachers, site staff, and key informants working on issues of memory, this study examines how multiple stakeholders embody, perform, and perceive expertise. I extend literature on the question of experience-based expertise to the case of post-conflict memorialization to analyze the tensions that arise when creating exhibits and presenting them to youth audiences. Findings suggest that there is a constant push-and-pull between “scholar-experts” who can claim authority based on educational credentials, professional experience, and research skills, and “victim-experts” whose lay expertise is decidedly grounded on experiential knowledge and emotions. Interactions among distinct experts bring up complex negotiations, becoming materialized in objects and spaces that are then communicated to lay audiences. Young visitors perceive and assess performances of expertise from their place as non-experts, expecting communicative and novel translations that can convey experiential knowledge. Engaging with the production, materialization, and communication of expertise in the context of post-conflict memorialization, this article adds new layers of analysis to binary distinctions between experts and non-experts.