Collective Memory Research Research Articles

Remembering the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait: Anniversary journalism’s role in collective memory and the State’s pursuit of ontological security

Seeking to broaden collective memory research beyond major nations and high-profile events (e.g., the Cold War and September 11), this study explores how Kuwaiti newspapers memorialized Saddam Hussein’s August 2, 1990, invasion of Kuwait. By tracing the evolution of commemorative narratives over three decades and observing how they resonate with the state’s political context, the role of the Kuwaiti press in shaping collective memory is shown. Additionally, given the shifts in Kuwait’s foreign policy—from initial animosity toward Iraq to a strategic partnership—prompted by leadership changes and the 2003 US–Iraq War, this study examines how commemorations reflected and solidified Kuwait’s evolving identity. In this context, the study evaluates the role of journalists as active participants in the state’s continuous pursuit of ontological security, which focuses on establishing a stable and recognized national identity alongside physical security.

Историческая политика Польской Народной Республики в российской историографии XXI века

Introduction. The article is devoted to the development of the Russian historiography of the study of the historical politics of the Polish People’s Republic. The author considers that the transformation of this historiographical field was inextricably linked, firstly, with the formation of an interdisciplinary field of collective memory research in Russia, and secondly, with the stable institutional cooperation of Russian and Polish scientists. Materials and Methods. Using the essays of Russian authors specializing in the issues of historical politics, the main problem blocks are identified. Analysis. It is noted that the commemorative trends in the Polish Republic were analyzed through the prism of the concept of «anniversary», the confrontation between state power and the Catholic Church, as well as through the study of educational policy in the field of historical knowledge. The diversification of the research field of memory studies in the 2010s contributed to the expansion of the set of subjects suitable for analysis from the point of view of politics of memory. The author notes that the comparative analysis of Polish historical politics was carried out by Russian historians from two different approaches, one of which included placing the problem in the pan–European context of the formation of historical narratives, the other assumed a broader consideration of the issue, including the analysis of non-European plots. The Commission of Historians of Russia and Poland is singled out as a key institutional core of Russian historiography, which for a long time carried out projects aimed at studying various aspects of memorial management of the Polish People’s Republic. Results. It is concluded that the urgent task of Russian specialists can be considered, on the one hand, the further development of specific commemorative projects of the Polish government and the analysis of transformations of its memorial management, on the other, the obstacle to any autarchic trends in historiography and the restoration of networking with Polish and other foreign colleagues.

Flashbulb memories

Abstract The two authors – one from literary and cultural studies, the other a cognitive psychologist – explore how the interdisciplinary perspective of Memory Studies can broaden and enrich current research efforts on flashbulb memories (FBMs). FBMs are memories of the circumstances in which one learned of a public emotionally charged event, such as 9/11. Psychological research on FBMs have focused on their cognitive properties, their putative accuracy and confidence. But we claim that when seen in the broader interdisciplinary perspective of collective memory research, FBMs emerge as inextricably linked up with social, cultural, and narrative dynamics. This article therefore locates FBMs at the intersection of individual and collective memory narratives. Connecting research in cognitive psychology with cultural Memory Studies, we explore how flashbulb narratives bear on social identity and how they might travel across national boundaries or across generations. We further discuss how FBMs are tied to culture, aesthetics, and media history.

Back to Representations: in Search of Grounds for Collective Memory

The article substantiates the need to return to collective representations as optics for understanding collective memory, which will allow the bringing of the foundations under the concept of collective memory, and expand the theoretical and methodological base of research. As the first step, the author distinguishes between E. Durkheim’s “collective representations” and M. Halbwax’s interpretation of “collective memory”. Justifying the heuristic potential of the category “collective representations” for understanding collective memory, the author shows that the origins of this idea were connected with Durkheim’s acquaintance with the school of V. Wundt: 1) the idea of collective representations is connected with the views of the German psychologist; and 2) the development of the method of sociology bears traces of Wundt’s positivism. Furthermore, the author’s concerns are the ways of preserving and translating collective representations, showing the possibilities of substantiating commemorative practices as performative acts and the need to abandon reflection as a source of collective memory research. In conclusion, the author proves that the return to the idea of collective representations as a basis for understanding collective memory allows us to move away from the metaphorical concept, as well as to reconsider the ways of researching and interpreting the politics of memory, the relationship between individual and collective memory, the study of the place of the image of specific events in collective memory, and the place of psychological explanations.

History Contra Collective Memory: Collective Memory’s Finite Province

In the humanities and social sciences, with the rise of memory studies, there has been an important theoretical shift in how we engage the past. What used to be studied with the methodically elaborate field of history no longer seems adequate. With memory becoming an ever-present framework with which to look at culture, literature, social phenomena, politics, and the arts, a theoretical conviction has come to prevail that says collective memory is a larger framework within which history and other approaches to the past must be situated. This paper tries to address this theoretical conviction of conflating history with collective memory by arguing that collective memory cannot be a be-all umbrella term encapsulating historical representation or other approaches to the past such as tradition. It does so by uncovering the ground for such a conviction, during which a clearer view of the role of history and the limits of collective memory emerge. The investigation shows that indiscriminate application of the concept of collective memory in every approach dealing with the past makes the concept almost meaningless and betrays its two crucial characters, or limits: that of i) temporal finiteness and ii) fragmentariness. In so doing, it restores the vital role history plays in trying to get at the truth of the past. The article concludes by calling for deeper engagement with foundational conceptual and theoretical issues in collective memory research if it is to establish itself as a longstanding field of inquiry.

The structure and organization of collective memory representations

Most collective memory research to date has focused on the temporal distribution of and generational differences in public event representations while not directly addressing the conceptual relationships between different event representations. This study investigates how individuals cluster representations of public events and how sociopolitical identity changes event clustering. Participants judged the similarity of different pairs of key public events and reported their voting behavior. Using multidimensional scaling (MDS), we identified that public events were distinguished based on their political and nonpolitical characteristics; political events were further clustered based on their specific attributes (e.g. power struggles or ethnicity issues). Voting behavior introduced variations into how people clustered political public events. Our findings suggest that collective memories that are formed in relation to a historical and sociopolitical background may be better understood within a network of relationships and at the level of specific cultures/groups rather than at a larger (e.g. national) level.

Theoretical and Methodological Approaches to Collective Memory Analysis in Memory Studies

Introduction. Collective memory research helps to uncover the deeply imbedded meaning of the past in the present, to follow the identity development process in various communities, to find narrative structures that define societal foundations. Simultaneously, such research can be complicated from the empirical point of view. The scientific novelty of the given article lies in the fact that theoretical and methodological approaches to collective memory research have not yet been summarized and systematized up to this date. The goal of this research is to provide such a review and determine the most valid research methods in Memory Studies. The relevance of the presented research is determined by the fact that the proposition of a methodological apparatus for Memory Studies is necessary for the finalization of its formation as an independent discipline.Methodology and sources. Collective memory theory served as the theoretical-methodological foundation of the conducted research, it allowed to view the past not as a set given but as an object undergoing interpretation and representation. Such academics as M. Halbwachs, M. Bloch, A. Warburg, Jan and Aleida Assmann, J. Olick, A. Erll and others developed the following theory. A range of scientists dedicated their work to the discovery of collective memory research methods, among them M. Bulanova, W. Kansteiner, A. Erll, B. Zelizer, A. Confino, T. Kapitonova, V. Belokrylova, etc. J. Olick made a considerable impact into the understanding of the given issue, having suggested to view memory as a process developing in time, which required to define the methods of analysis that would be able to take this characteristic into account. However, a complete list as well as a general system and classification of methods have not been developed in the academic literature up to the present day. Having appeared at an intersection of various humanities and social sciences, Memory Studies adopts empirical research methods from Sociology, Political science, Culture Studies, Psychology, Media Studies, Visual Studies, etc. In course of the presented research, the relevant empirical research works in the Memory Studies field by international and Russian authors have been analyzed, we considered the research carried out by Ch. Lindt, A. Vasil'ev, T. Emel'yanova, A. Timofeeva, V. Kasamara, E. Hakokongas, E. Keightley, M. Meyers, B. Zelizer, and others. That allowed us to determine the most frequently applied collective memory research methods, to compile their overview and develop the author classification of the used methods.Results and discussion. An overview of key theoretical approaches to collective memory research was provided. They include functional, phenomenological, post-structural, social-historical and information approaches. J. Olick enriched the list of five theoretical approaches suggested by M. Bulanova by introducing the process-relativist approach to studying collective memory. The main research methods applied in Memory Studies were outlined; moreover, a classification of key disciplinary traditions that academics turn to in memory research was introduced featuring sociological, psychological, information, cultural and historical traditions as well as a separate branch of Computer Sciences.Conclusion. As a result of the conducted research, a systematic overview and an author's classification of theoretical-methodological approaches to collective memory analysis were introduced. The findings of the given research can be implemented by a range of academics working on the issues of group identity building, ways of working with contested past, historical events representation in the present, the functioning of memory communities, etc. The defining of the methodological apparatus of Memory studies serves as a moving force for the effective development, generalization and bringing to a common understanding the further research of collective memory structures formation and distribution as well as concepts related to it.

The Collective Memory of Soviet Past from the Sociology of Art’s Point of View: Cases of Giedrė Beinoriūtė and Jūratė Kluonė

The article focuses on the analysis of interpretations of the collective memory of Soviet past provided in the works of film director Giedrė Beinoriūtė and painter Jūratė Kluonė. The analysis is carried out by following the ideas of symbolic interactionism theory representative Howard Becker and is based on the results of semi-structural interviews. The article aims at connecting two usually separate fields of collective memory research in Lithuania – those of art criticism, history and sociology. Following one of the main ideas of symbolic interactionism, i.e. the meaning is created through the relationships, H. Becker describes art as ‘collective action’. In the article this idea is developed by showing that both artists explain choosing their families’ traumatic Soviet experiences as an object for their artistic creation because of their wish to give a meaning to those experiences. It is emphasized that the giving of meaning is possible only if the family’s history is shared with the society which recognizes and values the symbols of deportation and Siberia. In other words, the feeling of meaning appears when the family’s collective memory becomes a part of nation’s collective memory. Furthermore, within the framework of selected theory, it is emphasized that the presentation of the particular creation to society is a prerequisite for this creation to gain a status of a real work of art. However, nowadays it is said that the questions related to collective memory transcend the borders of national states. Therefore, it is claimed that the analysis of Lithuanian artists’ works reveals the need of similar research at the international level.

НАРРАТИВНЫЙ АНАЛИЗ КАК МЕТОД ИССЛЕДОВАНИЯ КОЛЛЕКТИВНОЙ ПАМЯТИ

The interest towards the issues of collective memory has not faded since the “memory boom” of the 20th century. Despite the considerable amount of theoretical and fundamental research into the collective memory, its aspects and varieties, less attention has been paid to the methodological foundation of the discipline. The establishing of the methodological apparatus of Memory Studies is necessary for its final formation into an independent field of knowledge. Many researchers have been describing various approaches to defining the research methodology of Memory Studies. However, the suggested methods allowed to analyze only static and fragmented manifestations of collective memory. Nowadays, collective memory researchers see it, first of all, as a process unfolding in time. Such an understanding of memory as a process, possessing temporal characteristics, happening in a cultural context and dependent on as well as formative for its participating subjects, lead to the establishment of ideas regarding the narrative nature of collective memory. That calls for a necessity to define a relevant research method that would allow to evaluate social practices of collective memory as well as the historical and sociocultural context that affects them. The goal of the given work lies in the systematization of presented in the academic literature ideas of the narrativeness of collective memory and in the evaluation of the scientific potential of narrative analysis in collective memory research.

Коллективная память: проблемы и перспективы

The author of the paper analyzed the modern scientific literature and revealed the most pressing issues of the methodology of collective memory research. The contradictions associated with the interdisciplinary strategy were presened by a separate pool. According to the author, the boundaries of the concept “col­lective memory” and approaches to the study of supra-individual processes are not clearly defined today, one should be skeptical about the judgments con­cerning the existence of a “network of shared memories”, it remains necessary for a scientist to clarify his role during field studies. Special attention is paid to the dichotomy of history and collective memory, as well as “places of mem­ory” and their deconstruction. The specific issues of epistemological analysis, in­cluding the problem of subject and the authenticity, the verifiability of narrative are analyzed in the paper. This work is intended to set priorities for further study of the phenomenon of collective memory and its deeper interpretation. As ana­lyzed texts, the works of following sociologists were used: (G. Schumann, E. Corning), psychologists (D. Wirtch), historians (P. Nora, J. Assmann), and also philosophers (N. Gadi, I. Elam, A. Margalit). Basically, these are modern sources that have been already relied on earlier researches, representing the branches of development of the theory investigated by the French sociolo­gist and philosopher M. Halbwachs. They trace both a certain continuity and contradictions associated with conceptual features.

ВТОРАЯ МИРОВАЯ ВОЙНА, «ИСПАНКА» ИЛИ ЧЕРНОБЫЛЬ? ПАНДЕМИЯ COVID-19 В ЗЕРКАЛЕ ИСТОРИЧЕСКИХ АНАЛОГИЙ (ПО МАТЕРИАЛАМ АМЕРИКАНСКОГО И РОССИЙСКОГО МЕДИА-ДИСКУРСА)

Purpose. The article attempts to reconstruct a range of historical analogies used to describe the COVID-19 pandemic in American and Russian public discourse in March 2020. Methodology and Approach. The methodological framework is set by the tradition of collective memory research (“memory studies”). The source base is materials posted on official websites of “The New York Times”, “The Washington Post” and “The Wall-Street Journal”, as well as materials from the Russian-language media discourse selected by search queries in the “Yandex News”. Results: the analysis of the media discourse allowed the author to identify three types of appeals to the collective past: “military”, “economic and “epidemiological” analogies. It is noted that the repertoires of “military” and “epidemiological” analogies in Russian and American media discourse are almost identical. Theoretical and/or practical implications. The study allowed testing the author’s methodology for the analysis of historical analogies in the media discourse, and its results open perspectives to further study of the problem.

Repertoires of Remembering: A Conceptual Approach for Studying Memory Practices in the Digital Ecosystem

Although the preponderance of collective memory research focuses on particular cultural repository sites, memorials, traumatic events, media channels, texts, or commemorative rituals as objects of study, this article fills a gap in literature by arguing that it is time to refresh established media-memory studies to now also consider how multimodal practices promise insight into the process of shared remembering in the new media ecology. The specific focus here is to propose a conceptual approach for how collective remembering can be observed, experienced, and researched in the digital ecosystem. In addition to a survey of collective memory and media memory studies, this article identifies specific ways to examine this issue by introducing the concepts of multimodal memory practices and platformed communities of memory, and by arguing that metadata analysis of digital practices should be considered a contemporary form of studying collective memory.

Uses of the Past: History as a Resource for the Present.

Collective memory has become an increasingly important topic in social and human sciences over the past thirty years. Beyond the interest for how we understand history, collective memory research has explored how the past has been used to defend certain understandings of the world (for instance nationalist ideologies), political actions (as in the case of intractable conflicts), or collective identities (particularly when they are seen as reflecting the historical 'essence' of a national group). That is, how the history is used as a resource for the present. However, theoretical conceptualisations have more directly focused on how collective memory is produced, and less so on how it is mobilised for the present. In this paper, we propose to review the main conceptualisation of collective memory in psychology - as social thinking, as social identity, and as sense-making - and how they more or less implicitly understand the relations between past and present. In a final section, we argue that representations of history have mainly been seen, in collective memory research, as a source of meaning for the present or as a way to position oneself in the current social field. In conclusion, we propose a third way of understanding the relations between past and present, considering collective memory to be both transformative of the present and prospective for the future.

Testimony of terrorism: Civic responsibility and memory work after a political massacre

Despite the wide use of testimonies in collective memory of violent historical and political events, proper psychosocial studies addressing the process of becoming a testimony remain scarce. In the context of the massacre of Piazza della Loggia in Brescia, this study examines the biographical transition from victims to testimonies of people directly or indirectly involved in the event. Through the use of semi-structured interviews, 13 biographical stories were collected and analysed through qualitative methodology. Out of the four biographical transitions evinced by the results of this study and besides the scenario of a victim not becoming a testimony, the results highlight three different biographical transitions: the immediate transition from victim to testimony, transition as awareness, and transition as a process of knowledge. These three biographical transitions are summarized in three types of identity: ‘heroic testimony’, ‘civic testimony’ and ‘epistemic testimony’. The results are hence discussed in the light of the community practices of collective memory and psychosocial research on the testimonies.

(Collective) Memory of Racial Violence and the Social Construction of the Hispanic Category among Houston Hispanics

Prior U.S.-based research examining the collective remembrance of racially charged events has focused on the black-white binary, largely bypassing such remembrance among U.S. Hispanics. In this article, I ask how a group of Mexican-origin Hispanics in an historic Houston barrio remember two racially charged events as well as whether and how these events are publicly commemorated. Additionally, race and collective memory research has often highlighted the role of collective memory in shaping race relations. I argue that collective memory can also be an institution, structuring macro- and micro-level representations of race. Thus, I ask whether and how respondents’ memories shape the social construction of the Hispanic category. I find strong memory convergence with respect to one event—the case of Jose Campos Torres—and divergence in three directions with respect to the Moody Park riot. The former corresponds to a collective understanding of what Hispanic meant in the past while the latter corresponds to a fractured understanding of what Hispanic means in the present. I also explore how respondents’ racial self-perceptions coincide with their various interpretations of the riot. Overall, I theorize that a fractured collective memory of a racially charged event suggests a fractured collective identity and contributes to an ambiguous Hispanic category. I conclude by discussing suggestions for future research.

Institutionalizing Counter‐Memories of the U.S. Civil Rights Movement: The National Civil Rights Museum and an Application of the Interest‐Convergence Principle

During the post–Reconstruction era in the United States, white southerners marked the cultural landscape with monuments and memorials honoring the Confederate cause and its heroes. These racialized symbols enjoyed an undisputed claim to public squares and parks throughout the South. It was not until the late twentieth century that commemorations to the black freedom struggle were publicly supported. This analysis examines the institutionalization of counter‐memories of the civil rights movement in Memphis, Tennessee at the Lorraine Motel, the site of the assassination of Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The author draws on collective memory, cultural trauma, and social movements research as well as critical race theory to explain the creation of the National Civil Rights Museum. Using primary and secondary data sources the author examines how social memory agents, a changing political culture, and the passage of time mediated the cultural trauma of King's assassination and influenced the institutionalization of oppositional collective memories. Relying on Derrick Bell's interest‐convergence principle, the author concludes that the creation of this major memorial museum was a result of the convergence of white and black interests, specifically the economic and political interests of white elites and the cultural and political interests of black symbolic entrepreneurs.

Collective interviewing: A transactive memory approach towards identifying signs of truthfulness

Group interviewing has been neglected in the deception literature, yet it coincides with recent collective memory research. The present experiment applied the transactive memory theory to a collective interviewing situation and explored whether signs of truthfulness emerged through measuring joint memory recall. Truth-tellers were real couples who had been in a relationship for at least one year and cohabiting. Lying pairs were friends who pretended to be in a relationship for at least one year and cohabiting. All couples were interviewed in their pairs about their ‘real’ or ‘fictitious’ relationships. It was found that truth-telling pairs posed questions to one another, provided cues to one another, handed over remembering responsibility, and finished each others’ sentences significantly more than lying pairs, supporting the idea that real couples have a transactive memory system, unlike pretending couples. Implications for a collective interview approach that considers memory within deception detection are discussed.

The Theory of Collective Memory and the 1953 Short Creek Arizona Polygamous Raid

A key question in collective memory research is how such memories are created and shared over time. This study consisted of a qualitative content analysis of documentary artifacts to determine whether there is a collective memory of the 1953 Arizona Short Creek Raid and, if so, how it developed and contributes to an ongoing sense of identity for some Fundamentalist Mormons. The study found the 1953 Short Creek Raid is the basis for a collective memory. That memory was solidified during a “myth-making” period and is reinforced through family and community activities to perpetuate a common group identity among some present-day Fundamentalist Mormons.

Collective Memory Formation and International Relations

Forgotten Genocides: Oblivion, Denial, and Memory. By Rene Lemarchand (Ed.). Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011. 200 pp., $49.95 hardback (ISBN-13: 978-0-812-24335-2). Accounting for Violence: Marketing Memory in Latin America. By Ksenija Bilbija, Leigh A. Payne (Eds.). Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2011. 405 pp., $24.95 paperback (ISBN-13: 978-0-822-35042-2). Power of the Past: Collective Memory and International Relations. By Eric Langenbacher, Yossi Shain (Eds.). Washington DC: Georgetown University Press, 2010. 240 pp., $29.95 paperback (ISBN-13: 978-1-589-01640-8). Each of these works engages the growing body of literature in collective memory studies. Collective memory research looks at how the past is remembered or represented in the present, how those representations change over time, and how political life is shaped by these forces. This literature has developed primarily outside of political science and thus International Relations, with most of the scholars coming from the humanities and other social sciences. Indeed, the majority of the authors in these three edited volumes are not political scientists. The lack of engagement by political scientists in this area of research is regrettable as they have perspectives that could contribute to this field of research, but it is a field of study that demands area-specific knowledge and deep cultural sensitivity, and perhaps fits best within the culturalist tradition of research (Ross 2009). These three works will hopefully encourage those working in International Relations to reflect on what can be gained from engaging this field of research. Why do narratives or collective memories about some mass crimes continue to circulate in domestic and international society for years after the events, while others appear to slip into oblivion? This question appears again and again throughout these three works, which to differing degrees touch upon International Relations or focus primarily on domestic politics. Taken as a whole, they cover every continent, although each work has a clear regional orientation and historical time frame. The authors in Power of the Past are the most explicit in their engagement with the International Relations literature and specifically the constructivist approach. Most of the chapters deal with either the United States or European countries, although there are two chapters that deal with Japan, China, and East Asia. The works are mostly orientated toward the role of sovereign states and foreign policy …

Invoking “collective memory”: mapping the emergence of a concept in archival science

The concept of “collective” or “social” memory has assumed increasing prominence in the discourse of archivists over the past few decades. Archives are frequently characterized as crucial institutions of social memory, and many professional activities are considered forms of memory preservation. We present a systematic examination of the relationships between archives and collective memory as articulated in the English-language archival literature. We first identify the major themes regarding collective memory and categorize archival writings into four major threads. We then analyze citations extracted from 165 articles about collective memory published between 1980 and 2010 in four leading English-language archival studies journals. We identify the most influential scholars and publications and trace the evolution of the collective memory concept in that literature. By comparing the archival literature on collective memory to that indexed in Thomson’s Web of Science and in Google Scholar, we identify specific disciplines, authors, and works that archivists working on collective memory may find useful. We find that in general the archival literature on collective memory is fairly insular and self-referential and call on archivists to actively engage other disciplines when carrying out collective memory research.