Collective Memory

Cultural Trauma and Collective Identity - Book Review

by Dominik Bartmanski

published in 2007 in Journal of Political and Military Sociology, Vol. 31, No. 10: 1–3.

 

Review of the book "Cultural Trauma and Collective Identity" by Jeffrey C. Alexander, Bernhard Giesen, Neil... more Review of the book "Cultural Trauma and Collective Identity" by Jeffrey C. Alexander, Bernhard Giesen, Neil Smelser, Piotr Sztompka. 2004. Berkeley, the University of California Press, 2004.

L'oeuvre de Hilma Granqvist : l'Orient imaginaire confronté à la réalité d'un village palestinien

by falestin naili

publié dans la Revue d'Etudes Palestiniennes, no. 105, 2007

Hilma Granqvist, Louise Baldensperger et la "tradition de rencontre" au village palestinien d'Artas

by falestin naili

Civilisations, no. 57, décembre 2008

Memories of Home and Stories of Displacement: The Women of Artas and the “Peasant Past”

by falestin naili

Sanctities, Blasphemies and the (Jewish) Nation: Commemorative Inscriptions at a National Memorial Site in Israel

by Chaim Noy

Cinema. O conforto de viajar sem sair do sítio, através do presente, do desejo e da memória.

by Diogo Morato

Este "texto-viagem" baseia-se na reciprocidade entre cidade e cinema, e a consequente operatividade... more Este "texto-viagem" baseia-se na reciprocidade entre cidade e cinema, e a consequente operatividade disciplinar. Percorrendo o discurso reinventado e recentrado sobre a cidade - de Le Corbusier a Aldo Rossi, e a prática cinematográfica seja na criação de cidades que não existem seja na crítica à cidade moderna - de Jean-Luc Godard a Pedro Costa, esta viagem deixa em aberto a multiplicidade de leituras da cidade e das suas formas que o cinema desenha, testando a força ideológica das imagens que arquivamos na memória, e recupera o carácter fragmentário ou de continuidade da Montagem, como auxiliar operativo na síntese entre Cidade do Desejo e Cidade da Memória, para um possível desenho urbano em jeito Collage, afirmando o seu carácter de potencial transformador e refundador de parte da própria cidade.

This text-journey is based on the reciprocity between city and cinema, and its consequent disciplinary engagment. Drawing on the reinvented and recentered discourse of the city - from Le Corbusier to Aldo Rossi, and on the cinematographic practice whether  in the creation of cities that do not exist or in the criticism of the modern city – from Jean-Luc Godard to Pedro Costa, this journey - drawn by cinema - leaves the multiplicity of readings of the city and its forms open. As an operative support in the synthesis between City of Desire and City of Memory, and towards a possible urban design in a Collage Way, this journey,  by stressing part of the city´s transforming and refounding potential character, also tests the ideological strengh of images that we keep in memory and retrieves the fragmentary or continuity nature of Montage.

The Psychology of Collective Memory

by Jeffrey Prager

Prime Time Commemoration: An Analysis of Television Broadcasts on Israel's Memorial Day for the Holocaust and the Heroism

by Eyal Zandberg

Family Photography as a phatic construction

by Patri Prieto

Published in 'Networking Knowledge: Journal of the MeCCSA Postgraduate Network', Vol. 3, No. 2 (2010)

When the camera became a domestic consumer good, photography was adapted to the needs of private production and... more When the camera became a domestic consumer good, photography was adapted to the needs of private production and reception (Slater, 1991: 50). The family archive contains images of selfportrayal, whose form is oriented towards established patterns, like cartes-de-visite, since they are  received privately as well as in a quasi-public area (wallet, desk in an office etc.).

Family photography gains its performative character by means of its phatic function (Malinowski, 1923/1949: 315-7), inscribed in a historical and socio-cultural frame (Hirsch, M. 1997: 10-2). It actuates in the border between naivety and formality, and these Memory-Pictures (Keppler, 1994: 187) create an impression of reliability and authenticity by their ritualized reception.

The storage in a family archive and the perfomativity of its reception oscillate between the paradigm of scripture and the regime of narration (Langford, 2006: 227). The characterization of the media category ‘family photography’ by means of the phatic function of communication, and the identification of suitable tools for the analysis, are the topics of this article.

Zandberg, E., Meyers, O. & Neiger, M. (2012). Past Continuous: Newsworthiness and the Shaping of Collective Memory. Critical Studies in Media Communication, 29(1): 65-79.

by Eyal Zandberg

Odessa et les confins de l’Europe: un éclairage historique (Odessa and the frontier of Europe: a historical perspective)

by Stella Ghervas

published in Stella Ghervas & François Rosset (eds), "Lieux d’Europe. Mythes et limites" (Places of Europe: Myths and Limits), Paris, Editions de la Maison des sciences de l'homme, 2008, pp. 107-124.

Réactualisée par le récent débat sur l'adhésion de la Turquie à l'Union européenne et par la crise ukrainienne, la... more Réactualisée par le récent débat sur l'adhésion de la Turquie à l'Union européenne et par la crise ukrainienne, la question des confins de l'Europe apparaît de manière contrastée dans le cas d'une ville comme Odessa. Dès son origine, elle a été conçue comme une ville libre et ouverte tout en servant de capitale à la Nouvelle Russie. Construite à l'européenne par des architectes français, elle a vu d'emblée s'installer différentes communautés nationales, et Pouchkine a pu dire à juste titre qu'on y «respire l'Europe».

Néanmoins, Odessa reste d'un point de vue géographique «doublement périphérique» par rapport à la Russie et à l'Europe. Tout au long du XIXe siècle, on y «exile» les intellectuels exclus des capitales de l'Empire des tsars. La ville prospère, mais de Paris, Londres ou Berlin, elle paraît en marge de l'Europe urbaine et culturelle. En 1847, Balzac ne vit lui-même «de la frontière européenne à Odessa qu'un même champ de la Beauce». Le triomphe de la révolution bolchevique introduira une véritable coupure dans l'histoire de la ville et de ses relations avec l'Europe.

Par un jeu de miroirs, le cas d'une ville-carrefour comme Odessa, lieu emblématique d'une Europe multiculturelle et multinationale, dit quelque chose du sens multiple de l'Europe, témoigne de ses déchirements et de ses conflits intérieurs. Elle permet aussi de mieux cerner les contenus de la civilisation européenne et de préciser les contours du Vieux Continent.

Collective memory and the politics of urban space: an introduction

by Derek Alderman

Rose-Redwood, Reuben, Derek H. Alderman, and Maoz Azaryahu. 2008. “Collective Memory and the Politics of Urban Space.” GeoJournal 73(3): 161-164. Introduction to special issue (guest edited by Reuben Rose-Redwood, Derek Alderman, and Maoz Azaryahu).

Memory of places and places of memory: for a Halbwachsian socio-ethnography of collective memory

by Gérôme Truc

Published in "International Social Science Journal", n° 203–204, 2011, p. 147-159.

Les études mémorielles connaissent depuis plusieurs années un essor certain. Mais, à la suite du travail de... more Les études mémorielles connaissent depuis plusieurs années un essor certain. Mais, à la suite du travail de l’historien Pierre Nora, l’analyse initiée par Halbwachs des processus de localisation des souvenirs a trop souvent été réduite à une simple étude des « lieux de mémoire ». Le but de cet article est alors de restituer la portée sociologique de la dynamique des rapports entre mémoires et lieux, en soulignant à cet égard la portée paradigmatique, tant du point de vue méthodologique que théorique, de La topographie légendaire des évangiles en Terre sainte. À partir d’exemples tirés de ses propres recherches sur les lieux d’attentats et d’une revue de la littérature sur les phénomènes de « mémorialisation spontanée », l’auteur montre que l’enquête sociologique doit se pencher tour à tour sur « ce que les lieux font à la mémoire » et sur « ce que la mémoire fait aux lieux ». Un tel travail implique de porter une attention particulière aux déplacements, tensions et conflits existant entre la « mémoire des lieux » d’un événement passé et les « lieux de mémoire » où cet événement est commémoré, et justifie pour cela le recours à une méthodologie essentiellement ethnographique.

Olive Drab in Black and White: The Brazilian Expeditionary Force, the US Army and Racial National Identity

by Uri Rosenheck

Paper delivered at the Latin American Studies Association (LASA), Toronto, October 8, 2010

When the Brazilian Expeditionary Force arrived in Italy to fight alongside the Allies in WWII, its members were... more When the Brazilian Expeditionary Force arrived in Italy to fight alongside the Allies in WWII, its members were introduced to the racially segregated US Army. Based on diaries, trench journals, newspapers, and memoirs, this paper explores the ways in which Brazilians of diverse origins, rather than ideology producing elites, projected their own national perceptions on race relations. Their representations, however, were not uniform. Rather, they offered an array of alternative racial national identities varying from all-white troops to zealous support of their “Racial Democracy.” Civil rights activists in the US used these images to condemn racial segregation while some Brazilians criticized the Brazilian Army’s hypocrisy and racism.

Trauma and Memory: The Impact of Apartheid-Era Forced Removals on Coloured Identity in Cape Town

by Henry Trotter

in Mohamed Adhikari (Ed.), Burdened by Race: Coloured Identities in Southern Africa (Cape Town: UCT Press, 2009), pp. 49-78

Communities often cohere around memories of historical suffering: yet coloured South Africans, a people whose diverse... more Communities often cohere around memories of historical suffering: yet coloured South Africans, a people whose diverse ancestry experienced enslavement, dispossession, genocidal extermination, and apartheid degradation, for the most part, they do not invest in remote historical traumas. Most coloured Capetonians instead focus upon a painful experience within living memory: the forced eviction of 150,000 coloured people from their homes and communities in the Cape Peninsula between 1957 and 1985 under the Group Areas Act. It is this experience that gives coloured identity vital resonance, especially amongst working class people, many of whom have yet to overcome the losses of that trauma.

Based on over one hundred life history interviews with coloured and African forced removees, this article examines the impact of Group Areas evictions on contemporary coloured identity. It suggests that, in the wake of mass social trauma, coloured removees coped with their pain by reminiscing with each other about the "good old days" in the destroyed communities. Their removal to racially defined townships ensured that they mainly shared their memories with other coloured people, and much less with African or Indian removees.

Apartheid social engineering to a large extent thus determined the spatial limits within which coloured memories circulated, creating a reflexive, mutually reinforcing pattern of narrative traffic. Over the past four decades, the constant circulation of these nostalgic stories has developed a "narrative community" amongst coloured people in the townships. This experience of popular sharing and support in the context of loss today gives coloured identity in Cape Town a dimension that would be lacking if it were only mobilized for political or economic purposes.

A Mechanism for Multidisciplinary Dialogue: The Memory & . . . Series

by Hilton Kelly

Past Continuous: Newsworthiness and the Shaping of Collective Memory

by Motti Neiger

Co-authored with Eyal Zandberg and Oren Meyers
Published in "Critical Studies in Media Communication"

Keywords: Collective memory; Newsworthiness; Commemoration; Newscasts; Holocaust

This study explores the multi-layered interrelations between the production of news and collective remembering. We... more This study explores the multi-layered interrelations between the production of news and collective remembering. We investigate this phenomenon by analyzing television newscasts aired on Israel’s Memorial Day for the Holocaust and Heroism (MDHH), 1994
-2007. These newscasts provide a rich research corpus because they stand at the intersection between two types of rituals: the everyday ritual of newsmaking, and the national commemorative ritual, for which the media serves as a main site of articulation.
The article implements a ‘‘zoom in’’ perspective: first, we examine the broadcasting schedules, exploring the role of newscasts in the process of leading the audiences in and
out of the commemorative ritual. Next, we suggest a typology distinguishing between (a) items dealing with current events, (b) commemorative items focusing on Holocaust remembrance, and (c) dog whistle items that are ‘‘attuned’’ to the specific cultural ear and thus enable mundane news items to be interpreted as related to Holocaust commemoration.
We argue that the dual aim of the items featured in MDHH newscasts
to provide both news values and commemorative values
leads to the construction of ‘‘reversed memory,’’
a narrative that commemorates past events (the ‘‘there and then’’) by narrating present events (the ‘‘here and now’’). Reversed memory commemorates the difficult past through the achievements of the present, and thus not only eases the collective confrontation with painful traumas, but rather avoids this encounter altogether.

Keywords: Collective memory; Newsworthiness; Commemoration; Newscasts; Holocaust

"Nonsynchronism," Traditional Music, and Memory in Ireland.

by Steve Coleman

in Memory Ireland Volume 2: Diaspora and Memory Practices Edited by Oona Frawley. Syracuse University Press. 2012, pp. 161-170.

QUAND L'ÉVÉNEMENT CRÉE LA CONTINUITÉ, L'intégration de Sohane Benziane dans les mémoires féministes en France

by Marion Charpenel

Le 4 octobre 2002, Sohane Benziane, 17 ans, est brûlée vive dans un local à poubelles de la cité Balzac, à... more Le 4 octobre 2002, Sohane Benziane, 17 ans, est brûlée vive dans un local à poubelles de la cité Balzac, à Vitry-sur-Seine dans le Val-de-Marne. Cet article revient sur les différentes «opérations de cadrage », menées par des militantes féministes, qui ont abouti à la qualification de la mort de Sohane en « crime sexiste », faisant ainsi entrer l’événement dans l’histoire des luttes féministes. Cet article aborde aussi la façon dont l’assassinat de Sohane Benziane a marqué l’espace de la cause des femmes, rendant notamment visible une rupture générationnelle.
Puis, en mettant l’accent sur les processus de construction du souvenir, on entend montrer comment, à la faveur des commémorations, l’événement a fait l’objet de réinterprétations, qui ont permis de rétablir de la continuité entre des sous-groupes ou des générations qui s’étaient opposés au moment où l’évènement est advenu dans l’histoire du mouvement.

La mémoire européenne à l'heure du "paradigme victimaire" (European Memory in the Age of "Victimization Paradigm"), in Stella Ghervas & F. Rosset (eds), "Lieux d'Europe. Mythes et limites", Paris, Editions de la Maison des sciences de l'homme, 2008, p. 215-243.

by Stella Ghervas

Co-authored with R. Sigist. Published in Stella Ghervas & F. Rosset (eds), "Lieux d'Europe. Mythes et limites", Paris, Editions de la Maison des sciences de l'homme, 2008, p. 215-243.

Continent riche en histoire et en culture, l’Europe se conçoit pourtant moins comme héritage que comme projet... more Continent riche en histoire et en culture, l’Europe se conçoit pourtant moins comme héritage que comme projet politique et social. En se dotant de symboles étatiques comme le drapeau, la monnaie ou l’hymne, l’Union européenne a bien marqué sa volonté de concrétiser ce projet. Mais en exprimer l’essence d’une manière claire et reconnaissable, de manière à susciter l’adhésion des citoyens potentiels, est une tout autre tâche, que ces symboles abstraits ne suffisent pas à exécuter. Seul l’euro, avec sa symbolique de l’ouverture (carte sans frontières, ponts, fenêtres), est capable d’exprimer une faible partie des valeurs dont se réclame la nouvelle fédération européenne. Pour le reste, on pourrait se demander en quoi consiste le vécu commun des Européens d’aujourd’hui, si ce n’est précisément en l’utilisation d’une monnaie commune, ou l’organisation de manifestations sportives comme les coupes européennes de football.

Historiquement, c’est bien la volonté de dépasser les identités nationales classiques, et les conflits qu’elles ont engendrés notamment au xxe siècle, qui fut à l’origine de la construction européenne.