Selective Memory: Channelling the Past in Post-GDR Society

Abstract

Collective memory, comprising the ways in which the past is perceived, shared, and constructed through daily interactions, ceremonial, or negative manifestations such as taboo, has become a focus for scholarship that crosses disciplinary boundaries within the humanities and social sciences. This chapter points to some potential new avenues for memory research using insights from different disciplines. Specifically, it draws on political science approaches, together with those from cognate social science disciplines, to examine ways in which current memory research on the GDR might usefully be supplemented. Adopting an alternative perspective on some of the common assumptions and themes in GDR memory research helps us to reassess the analytical priorities of the field and to explore alternative research methodologies and agendas. It is well beyond the scope of this chapter to present a comprehensive catalogue of political science approaches to the challenge of remembering the GDR; themes have therefore been selected to highlight different ways in which a political science perspective may inform contemporary debates in GDR memory research. These include the temporal perspective of political science; the significance of memory for society; the construction of memory collectives; the contextualisa-tion of memory in identity formation; and constructions of victimhood.