'Your mind is the battlefield': South African trainee health workers engage with the past

A key problematic in any post-conflict society is how to account for the injustices of the past, while at the same time making a space for the development of a shared future. In South Africa, there is an increasing demand for health and social service workers, who are required to address the impact of an unjust past upon individuals and communities. Educators of health and social service workers are thus faced with the complexities of finding pedagogical practices that would allow students to recognize these past injustices and their impact on present problems. This article looks at data taken from a teaching project across two South African universities, where students from three professions engaged in online discussions about their personal, social and future professional identities. During some of these discussions, students spontaneously entered into disagreements about the relevance or irrelevance of the past in modern-day South Africa. The data indicates considerable reluctance on the part of some students to talk about the past and its relevance to the present. The authors suggest that while talking about the past is both difficult and potentially painful for students, it is nevertheless the responsibility of educators to facilitate such discussions among trainee professionals.