Collective Memory and Terrorism

Abstract

The concept of collective memory was made prominent by Maurice Halbwachs in 1952. 1 As a protege of the renowned Emile Durkheim, Halbwachs authored several sociologies of knowledge, the most famous of which was the posthumously published “Collective Memory”. In this text, Halbwachs made a major contribution to the ways in which memory is understood. Rather than an individualised capacity to store information from the past, Halbwachs argued that the existence of a social framework for memory underpins our individual abilities to remember. Memory is social, and we cannot process our sensory experiences into memories without reliance upon social frameworks of language and political understanding. Halbwachs showed that we do not recollect objectively or impartially; rather, the things we remember are reliant upon the structures which make events meaningful or silent. He stated:It is in this sense that there exists a collective memory and social frameworks for memory; it is to the degree that our individual thought places itself within these frameworks and participates in this memory that it is capable of the act of recollection.