A Momentary Lapse in Memory: An Inquiry into (Re)Memory and Trauma Embodiment

Abstract

This essay investigates the impact of the archival practice on oral histories of conflict. Specifically, it asks to what capacity can the lived experience be devoured by the grinding machine of forced institutional remembrance, and how can it defy such a predicament? The inquiry to this question was studied through the oral history of the author’s friends, family and neighbors concerning the 1999 NATO bombing of Yugoslavia. This military intervention was done in response to the oppressive regime of Slobodan Milošević and remains fresh in the Serbian collective memory. Utilizing qualitative generative interviews, a case study of the author’s parents’ approaches to archiving, and personal footage recorded by the RadioTelevision of Serbia, the paper examines differences between institutional and personal archival practices. The analysis displays that institutional remembrance can claim the lived experience through collective memory, which is reinstated by commemorative practices and archiving. In contrast, oral histories of conflict result in a different type of narrativebuilding and remembering. They are characterized by mechanisms such as collective editing, transmission, and non linearity, which resist standardization and instrumentalization. This paper advocates for reconsidering static preservation oriented modes of institutional archiving, proposing instead, to embrace nonreproductible aspects or the unreliable of oral history.