Regional integration and (trans)cultural memory

Abstract

This article asks how we can understand processes of regional integration through the lens of memory. Regional integration, despite its taking place in the here and now, rests on acts of cultural recall. Socially shared versions of history, concepts of identity, values and norms, stereotypes, and prejudices as well as certain modes of behavior are usually formed in long historical processes and become part of a “cultural memory.” Cultural memory is one of the “soft factors” which are inevitably at work in the negotiation of economical questions, energy and power politics—the “hard factors” of regional integration, as it were. It can affect the way in which processes of regional integration function, or fail to do so. And it often does so in ways that social groups are not even conscious of. The article will present theories of cultural memory put forward by Maurice Halbwachs, Pierre Nora, and Aleida and Jan Assmann as well as recent trends in research on “transcultural memory” and ask about their implications for the study of regional integration.