Memory

Abstract

Memory has been an important topic in social science, including the concept of collective memory that originates in the Durkheimian tradition. Psychological research has contributed valuable knowledge about individual remembering, highlighting the fallibility of memory and the impacts of social factors. For ethnographers, memory is an integral part of their toolkit as well as the topic of many interviews. Many anthropological approaches are focused on collective memory, however, including topics such as the politics of memory and history, commemorative rituals and landscapes, and the transgenerational communication of knowledge and practices. In these types of research, the accuracy of memory is typically viewed as less important than the cultural meanings that memory provides. The diverse interpretations and methodologies used by different memory researchers calls for several important conceptual and methodological considerations—particularly regarding the concept of collective remembering. Memory continues to serve as a topic for interdisciplinary cross‐fertilization and collaborative research.