Family Memory as a Prospective Field of Memory Studies

Rituals, as forms of repetitive and symbolic social action, play an important role in sustaining and enhancing quality family life. This article reports on a study which aimed to shed light on family rituals by taking young single adults, who still reside in their families of origin, as research population. Using a qualitative methodological approach, the focus fell specifically on the different kinds of rituals that exist in the family of origin of young adults and the symbolic meaning or value young adults attach to these family rituals. The narratives of the respondents revealed that all the young adults in the sample regularly partook in family rituals and that most of them ascribed positive symbolic meaning to these rituals. Not only did the findings reiterate the significance of rituals in maintaining family memories through reminiscence, but it was also found that memories lie at the core of family rituals to the extent that the ritual itself becomes part of family memory.

This article studies the narrative interviews of residents of the Lipetsk Region dealing with family memory to see whether they contain any mythological fragments or elements of everyday mythology. Definitions are given of the concept everyday life as the basic form of social existence and the concept family memory as a space covering all spheres of everyday life (household, labour and leisure). The purpose of the article is to find in the narratives of respondents the stories related to the phenomenon of sacrifice and to determine the significance of such stories for family memory. The space of family memory is understood here as an object of narratives that have a certain structure, contain constructive and destructive elements and can be classified depending on the representation of key phenomena in the stories. One such phenomenon is the sacrifice. The author believes the sacrifice to be one of the most important components of the system of social mythology and refers it to the “myth-content phenomena”, which are the manifestations of social mythology in the life of society, myth-containing facts of social life. The presence of a sacrifice figure, a victim, in family stories indicates a penetration of everyday mythology into all main spheres of everyday life. Explicit or latent mentions of the victim in family stories are considered as a kind of attractor and generator of mythological structures, as a specific fragment of the narrative. The existence of the phenomenon of sacrifice in the narratives of family memory makes it possible to develop a typology of stories about family history: such narratives can fall into the category “a story containing mythologized fragments”. In addition, a conclusion is made that stories of individual families are closely related to a broader context: collective and national memory.

Referring to the data of long-term sociological research by the Federal Scientific Research Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the author studies how the historical memory in contemporary Russian society is forming under the influence of the discursive politicization of the national past. The purpose of the article is to study either the images of the recent national past that are rooted in the mass consciousness of Russians being the basis of collective identity, or the changes in attitudes towards the past under the influence of the state rhetoric “historization”. The realization of the scientific purpose involves to solve some research tasks: to study the dynamics of respondents’ interest in the state’s past when political leaders used to apply to historical memory, to analyze what people in Russia think about historical truth, about the ways and the actors of its protection. Under the contemporary political context, when the past and history become tools of political competition, many persons in Russia, for whom the Soviet heritage is the foundation of national identity and family memory, support the idea of the need to protect the socially accepted interpretation of Russian history. In 2020’th the majority of the respondents (37%) claimed the need to react harshly to the distorted interpretation of some events in Russian history when whey answered the question “How should Russia react to the false interpretation of certain historical events in some Western countries?”. The historical truth is considered by the Russia’s citizens as a universal interpretation of historical events, so the majority (48%) claims it is necessary to protect historical memory by the preservation of those interpretations of the historical events, that are admitted by the society. Supporting the idea that historical truth should be protected, Russian citizens rather support harsh political statements and defensive foreign policy discourse than demonstrate real involvement into historical context, their own daily interest in protecting accepted interpretations of the past and personal concern about their correctness. In 2022 less than a third of the respondents (29%) considered the ordinary citizens should protect the historical truth, while the majority claimed the state’s leadership (67%), professional historians (49%) and social scientists (38%) should defend national historical memory.

The author explores how chronicle and memoirs, history and memory reconstruct the past, while simultaneously influencing each other, using the methodological division of commemorative resources. The empirical basis of the study is the data of surveys conducted by the scientific group of the Institute of Sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences in the fall of 2020 and spring of 2022. The sociological data help the author to clarify how today, in the postmemory era, the private and family memory of our compatriots responds to the state historical discourse and to what extent family history acts as a means of reconstructing the national past. With the growing interest of Russians in their own identity and their inclusion in digital communication, the popularity of genealogical projects is increasing, with the help of which not only family memory, but also national history, is reconstructed, and the perception of the past is changing. Information about family history is the most important source of information about national history. Emotionally and meaningfully rich stories from eyewitnesses increase the historical interest of their children and grandchildren. History as a resource of identity turns post-memory carriers — close relatives, civil society, and bureaucracy — into creators of memory, and therefore history makers. One of the most striking examples of genealogical mnemonic, which became possible due to the post-memorial commemoration, as well as the digitalization of archival information about the war period, is the Immortal Regiment project, which symbolically connects national history and family memory. With the help of digitized archival data and virtual genealogy projects, many Russians are successfully reconstructing family history, especially when unknown circumstances of family history are felt as a “premonition” of family memory. The “incompleteness” of stories of a significant part of Russian families, primarily about the 1930—1950 time period, gives rise to a demand for historical authenticity, but the perception of the past through the circumstances of the lives of relatives makes such perception less “white-or-black”, calling for a balanced and “understanding” assessment of history, whatever it may be.

The 1947 partition of the Indian subcontinent was a defining moment in the history of modern South Asia. It marked the end of British colonial rule and led to the creation of the independent nations of India and Pakistan, resulting in irreparable disruptions to individual, familial, and collective identities across the region. This chapter examines the memories and postmemories of partition among first-, second-, and third-generation family members, revealing the varied affective and experiential differences across generations. It further explores silences, gaps, fissures, and forms of aphasia in the intergenerational transmission of partition memories within the family unit. The chapter argues that survivors and their descendants often express repressed memories through cultural representations and affective embodied practices such as food, plays, and dance. To address these concerns, the chapter draws from the theoretical frameworks of memory studies, particularly postmemory and family memory, and uses ethnographic methods among partition survivor families.

The article presents an analytical review of the events of the 3rd international forum conference ‘Children’s literature as a phenomenon’ which was held in December, 2019, at Moscow City University on the basis of the involved observation carried by the authors who took part in the conference. The authors specify the key problems raised at the interdisciplinary conference, starting from the pre-conference stage where the American researchers (O.B. Bukhina, K. Herold) delivered a binary lecture on the study of children’s literature in the USA. The key problems were discussed which determined the main tracks of the conference. The first track consolidated the issues associated with gender dimensions of children’s literature (moderated by I.A. Sergiyenko). It was found out that the topic is not imposed upon the children’s literature from the outside: texts reflect changes in our society in connection with the status of men and women and the upbringing of boys and girls. The second track of the conference, which was moderated by M.L. Maiofis and connected with family memory and local memory in the contemporary children’s literature, demonstrated that the segment of literature in question is a powerful keeper of memory, both family memory and national memory. The speeches and discussions of the third track (moderated by O.B. Bukhina) dwelt on the National versus the International in the children’s literature and on their comparison; all the speakers emphasized the potential of the books under discussion for young readers. A separate conference track was the one connected with the study of the child reading in all its aspects. The anthropologist’s (S.G. Maslinskaya’s) view on the problem defined the framework of the talk where sociologists, specialists in teaching methods, librarians and teachers participated. Following the discussions unfolded on different platforms, the participants came to the conclusion that the promotion of reading is successful only when a child/a teenager/an adolescent is put in the position of an agent of their own reading activities which take place at home, at school and beyond it. The authors of the article have demonstrated what factors and conditions are needed for an interdisciplinary scientific conference to become a phenomenon to all those who deal with the problems of children’s literature and child reading.

This article examines how works in Brian Castro's Shanghai Dancing as way of challenging notion of identity confined within and community. Shanghai Dancing is seventh book by Brian Castro, who currently lives and teaches in Adelaide. was written over eight years and was refused by Australian publishing agents several times. eventually, ivor indyk at Giramondo press, who has helped Castro publish several of his books, put this book into print, and recommends as Castro's most important work (sullivan, qtd. in Brennan 1). i regard as his most representative book, in that not only challenges conventional ways of writing by contesting genres of fiction and autobiography, but also demonstrates relations between memory and identity. Quoting from Castro's own words about memory and self in Shanghai Dancing, this paper is interested in discussing how fictional autobiography can contest notion of identity defined by ethnicity and nationality. examines Castro's representations of based on theory of cosmopolitanism, and borrowing light from daniel Levy and natan sznaider's definition of (Levy and sznaider).THE NOTION OF COSMOPOLITAN MEMORYMaurice Halbwachs has argued that it is in society that people normally acquire their memories. is also in society that they recall, recognize, and localize their (38). Under trend of globalization, representations of collective memories have transcended borders and become what is called memory. in Shanghai Dancing, family memories of Castro's central characters Antonio and Arnaldo interweave and merge into global historical events dating back as early as year 1639, when the portuguese were evicted from Japan (Castro, Writing Asia 103), as depicted in novel. Castro does not intend to only represent his family memories, but rather how these memories crack of nation and ethnicity, and how transnational remembrances contribute to formation of cosmopolitan memory.What is cosmopolitan memory? What is its relation with collective memory? How is cosmopolitan memory represented in Shanghai Dancing? How does cosmopolitan memory inf luence understandings of identity in novel? As Levy and sznaider argue, there is recent trend called internal (quoting Beck et al. 88) through which global concerns become part of local experiences of an increasing number of people. Based on this, Levy further proposes cosmopolitan memory as different kind of memory, a memory transcending ethnic and national boundaries (88). About relationships between cosmopolitan memory and collective memory, Levy and sznaider argue that conventional concept of collective memory is embedded within of nation-state while this container is in process of being slowly cracked (88). they argue,Our central objective is to trace decoupling of collective memory and national history. national and ethnic memories are transformed in age of globalization rather than erased. they continue to exist, of course, but globalization processes also imply that different national memories are subjected to common patterning. [. . .] new, global narrative has to be reconciled with old, national narratives; and result is always distinctive. (89)The definition of cosmopolitan memory, of course, should be related to notion of cosmopolitanism. Remaining problematic term that is still undergoing questionable re-definition, there is some consensus on original meaning and philosophical references of cosmopolitanism. derived from Greek words for world (cosmos) and city (polis), refers to a man without fixed abode, or better, man who is nowhere stranger (pheng Cheah 4, 297). Cheah comments that term's philosophical usage, to refer to citizen of universe, however, emphasizes that this intellectual ethos or spirit is not one of rootlessness (487). …

When approaching “information storage” from a social science perspective, there are different actors and actor constellations that have a stake in the kind of information that is stored, how it is stored, and therefore in determining what is ultimately remembered. Consequently, a continuous interplay between individual and collective dimensions can be observed in the production of memory in societies. This chapter introduces to (cultural) memory research with a focus on family practices of remembering in today’s media environment. We argue that family memory is situated at the intersection between individual and collective memory and can therefore serve to illustrate different strands in interdisciplinary memory research. We first provide a brief overview of memory studies in conjunction with media and then introduce the study of family memory in particular. Secondly, we introduce different ways of researching family memory and illustrate these with a number of examples of empirical studies.

In this chapter concepts and approaches from transnational memory studies are used to show how these poems contribute to a transnational memory culture of 9/11. This national memory of the 9/11 attacks, which circulated transnationally, tended to shut out other perspectives. Seamus Heaney’s contribution to the literature of 9/11, ‘Anything Can Happen,’ is used to trace the circulation of a transnational 9/11 memory. The translation of a Latin ode and the later appropriations of the text, the Amnesty translations in 2004 and the musical adaptation, disrupt the national memory frame that has circumscribed 9/11.

After a period of intense work on national memory cultures, we are observing a growing interest in memory both as a social and an individual practice. Memory studies tend to focus on a particular field of memory processes, namely those connected with war, persecution and expulsion. In this sense, the memory - or rather the trauma - of the Holocaust is paradigmatic for the entire research field. The Holocaust is furthermore increasingly understood as constitutive of a global memory community which transcends national memories and mediates universal values. The present volume diverges from this perspective by dealing also with everyday subjects of memory. This allows for a more complete view of the interdependencies between public and private memory and, more specifically, public and family memory.

Schizophrenia and family rituals: measuring family rituals among schizophrenics and “normals”

Germany’s unification in 1989 triggered a public and literary confrontation with WWII, the Holocaust and the East-West German past. The years following the “Wende” of 1989/90 witnessed an increase in autobiographical family novels that explore how historical events of the twentieth century impacted upon individual and family pasts and continue to do so. Monika Maron, in claiming Pawels Briefe (Pavel’s Letters) (1999) as a family story/history, rather than novel, raises questions about the ethics of intertwinement between autobiographical memory and family memory, specifically postmemory. By analyzing narrative and photographic engagement, I argue that Maron resists over-identification by engendering critical distance between family memory and autobiographical memory that are both situated in a particular moment of German national memory.

This article introduces a special issue on “family, memory, and identity.” Beginning with a survey of previous research in this area, especially exploring family as a site for collective memory, and the ways that family memory work shapes national histories, it introduces the contribution made by this special issue to our understanding of how family memory and national memory intertwine in the production of individual identity. Highlighting the key findings of the special issue, it particularly notes how family history research has the potential to challenge and reform national memory, and in doing so allows for rich and complex rethinkings of the past for both historians and members of the public.

Cultural memory studies addresses the question of how the “past” is created and recreated within sociocultural contexts. What is the place of “family”–and of family memories–in this burgeoning field? And how can the concept of memory be used as a tool in comparative family research? This article presents, first, the main notions of Maurice Halbwachs’s theory of mémoire collective and asks how the sociologist places family within collective memory. Second, it discusses how the “new memory studies” of the 1980s and 1990s, which clearly showed a bias towards large-scale, often national memories, can be refocused through the lens of small-scale family memories. Third, it provides an overview of current research on the dynamics of remembering within families. It discusses how new approaches, which are based mostly on qualitative interviewing, have adopted innovative transgenerational, transnational, and media culture perspectives.

This chapter, “Locating Family in Memory Studies,” considers the place of “family”—and of family memories—in the field of memory studies. It presents, first, the main concepts of Maurice Halbwachs’s theory of mémoire collective and asks how the sociologist places the family within collective memory. Second, it discusses the “new memory studies” of the 1980s and 1990s, which clearly showed a bias toward large-scale, often national memories. How can these approaches be refocused through the lens of small-scale family memories? Third, the chapter provides an overview of research on the dynamics of remembering within families. It discusses how studies that are mostly based on qualitative interviewing have adopted innovative transgenerational, transnational, and media culture perspectives. Fourth, the chapter widens the perspective toward non-Western, non-heteronormative, and posthuman forms of “making kin” and memory.