Memories Without Borders? Spanish Courts and the Case for Universal Jurisdiction

Abstract

The field of memory has become a crucial topic of inquiry across academic disciplines and social discourses in recent years. Andreas Huyssen has referred to the widespread 'obsession with memory and fear of forgetting' in our contemporary globalized culture. The current preoccupation with collective memories across the globe and the parallel proliferation of critical discourses about the social processes of coming to terms with the collective past, appear symptomatic of cultural anxieties resulting from the systemic transformations caused by forces of globalization. I would like to argue that this resurgence of memory in political, cultural and academic discourses in the age of globalization is not a mere coincidence, but is a direct consequence of globalization. As Aleida Assmann and Sebastian Conrad have noted, the traditional spaces, channels and forms of collective memory are being transformed by, and in reaction to, the forces of globalization. Local and national spaces and processes of remembrance have not disappeared, but the global has now become the central stage for social and political actors, grassroots movements, and judicial activism. That is why it has become necessary, rephrasing Maurice Halbwachs's conceptualization of the 'social frames' of memory, to examine the 'global frames' of memories.