To which past do we belong?Selfandnarrativein a Brazilian mnemonic community of former institutionalized children

Abstract

This article analyzes the processes of remembering and identity formation in a present-day mnemonic community consisting of former inmates of a total government institution for abandoned juveniles in Brazil’s countryside during the Dictatorship Regime. Through the sharing of their remembrances, they mutually shaped their life’s stories in narratives of triumph. For dealing with the empirical data, we acknowledged that memory is a complex phenomenon which must be approached in an interdisciplinary way, considering concepts draw from Cognitive Sciences to Sociology. First, we have collected their remembrances on Social Media, in-depth interviews, and fieldwork over 4 years. Second, we analyzed the dynamics of validation; the network of authorities; and the emotional regimes among the former inmates that determined what is selected and interpreted as collective understandings of the past. We took a relational and processual sociological approach for analyzing how collaborative identity-mnemonic processes are also triggered, supported, and built by the material and cultural surrounding within mnemonic communities. For that, we assume a "distributed memory", and " distributed self" conceptions. Finally, we show how divergent understandings of their past are not validated within their community and consequently dismissed from their narratives of triumph.