Recognizing Victims of Political Violence: Basque Literary Narratives as an Ethical Tool

Adopting an ethical approach to education that focuses on the perspective of victims, this article analyzes some of the difficulties of acknowledging the victims of political violence in the Basque Country. It conceptualizes these difficulties as pathologies of recognition and argues that works of literary fiction have humanizing and educational value insofar as they reflect the victim's perspective and foster the reader's ethical education through narrative imagination. As a critical example, the article provides an analysis of four Basque literary works of fiction that respond to the pathologies of recognition as they narrate various acts of victimization. The transformative potential of working with literature that tells stories of victimization for politically violent conflicts in the Basque Country and elsewhere is highlighted.