Formation Of Collective Memory Research Articles

The Evangelical Aim in the History of the Great and Mighty Kingdom of China by Juan González de Mendoza, a 16th Century European Work on China

For over five centuries, the History of the Great and Mighty Kingdom of China, written by Spanish missionary Juan González de Mendoza and published in 1585 in Rome, has captured the interest of the international academic community. However, scholarship has primarily focused on Mendoza’s depiction of China as rich and powerful, potentially overlooking the evangelical purpose of his narrative and failing to explain the correlation between the positive Chinese image and the author’s evangelical intention. This study aims to clarify the image of China presented by the Spanish author through a detailed textual analysis, concluding that Mendoza portrayed China as a rich and great nation that also had misguided beliefs and was open to evangelization. The Spanish author’s identity as an Augustinian preacher and ambassador of King Philip II of Spain to the Ming dynasty of China, as well as the global and evangelistic social context in which he lived, significantly influenced his perceptions of China. Furthermore, his hybrid profile of China was accepted in Europe at the time and became a collective memory because it embodied the spiritual context shared by the European community in the 16th century. This spiritual purpose was achieved through the idealized imagination, which serves as an affective medium in the formation of collective memory.

Positive liberty in the drama <i>The Serfs</i> by Ivan Cankar

Cankar’s drama The Serfs (Hlapci) was written during the cultural struggle waged at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries and contains otherwise rarely stated political theses that have had a profound influence on the formation of Slovenian collective memory. The key world of Slovenian culture, as conveyed through the Cankar's drama, serves to express the dynamic processes of modernization and points to the unformed liberal and socialist discourse at the time. This is why the work functions in Slovenian culture as a call to action, even to active resistance.

On Smrti

“April is the cruelest month, breeding Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing memory and desire… ” So, begins T.S. Eliot’s iconic poem, “The Wasteland,” challenging the memory of Chaucer’s April from Canterbury Tales, as being a delightful month to go on pilgrimage. Platonic teachings emphasize that you don’t create, you just remember. Might the inverse might also be true, “You don’t remember, you just create.” As the oneirocritic, Robert Bosnak, contends, you do not actually remember your dreams. You remember your memory you recreate the dream in this time. Since the challenges of post-modernism, this is no longer a far-fetched idea. The eminent historian of immigration, Deborah Dash Moore, defines history in this regard, as “a search for a plausible narrative.” “History” is not a record of what happened, but rather, is a record of what we believe happened, or what we want to believe happened. This brings to the fore Foucault’s documenting the relationship of knowledge to power, as well as Freud’s assertion that material which is unacceptable to the ego, is disguised, in order to make them palatable. This places the notion of memory in a different light. There are incidents that occurred fifty years ago that seem as if they occurred five minutes ago. The depth psychologist and champion of the imagination, James Hillman, referred to this process as “soul-making.” Back to T.S. Eliot: when he studied Sanskrit at Harvard, he was certainly aware that the Sanskrit word for memory, smara (from which smrti “that which is remembered,” is derived) is also an epithet for Kama Deva, the Indian Cupid. Hence, the mixing of memory and desire. Perhaps, in this light, the study of history, which is a form of collective memory, is also a form of mass therapy, an effort to process the collective past. Hegel and Marx both believed classical India to be an inferior civilization because it had “no history,” but collections of mythologies. Maybe classical India, however, held an awareness that all memory is myth, a word which in its early Greek form literally translates as “plot.” Jesus declares (in the Gospel story) “Let the dead bury the dead.” As the Jesus narrative exemplifies, however, burying the dead is no easy task. Perhaps our ongoing, ever-morphing narratives, allow us an oblique opportunity to connect with and process our pain. And in this theatre of memory, the goal may not be to accumulate or catalogue what has been spoken (itihasa), but look a good miller, to process the grain into its essence: from what has passed, and is passing, and is to come, into what always is. Perhaps, the pilgrimage of the mind, on its endless perigination of story, is meant to ultimately take us to love, but that may be unspeakable. Keywords: memory, desire, narrative, history, myth, power

From Conflict to Cohesion: Unveiling Ambon's Journey Through Collective Memory Analysis and Post-Conflict Reconciliation

This article delves into the religious conflict that transpired in Ambon from 1999 to 2004, with a specific focus on elucidating the formation of collective memory as a pivotal mechanism for fostering post-conflict reconciliation. Employing a methodology amalgamating literature review and in-depth interviews, this research scrutinizes the intricate dynamics of the conflict, delineating the roles played by both Muslim and Christian communities, not only as victims but also as perpetrators. The principal findings underscore the shared responsibility of both groups in instigating the conflict, resulting in egregious acts such as assaults, homicides, and property destruction. The article accentuates the imperative of mutual acknowledgment regarding each community's role in the conflict as an indispensable stride towards reconciliation. It posits that an accurate and all-encompassing collective memory of the conflict serves as a catalyst for communities to critically assess their religious practices and fosters a climate of receptivity to broader religious understandings. The research underscores the significance of cultivating a nuanced collective memory in upholding peace and harmony within a diverse post-conflict society.

Na Today?

Abstract The Lekki Tollgate massacre, which was part of the brutal tactics used to put down the #EndSARS protests, underscored the incorrigibly violent nature of the Nigerian state. It also ruptured the sense of linear progressive time which governs the hegemonic conception of history and memory in Nigeria—for instance, time as post-civil war, post-dictatorship, etc. The boundary of this idea of a nation on a progressive march, made up of people healed of all traumas, and cured of their historical scars is fiercely and violently policed. A case in point is the fervour with which Biafra as a form of collective memory is being resisted and silenced. However, the murderous incident at the tollgate brought to the fore the fact that each violent moment in Nigeria’s turbulent history has created a fractured sense of history for many victims, and consequently hampered the possibility of forging a settled sense of belonging and national unity. One site where this sense of history as violently fractured has been adequately imagined is the creative arts, especially poetry. Poems have archived, mediated, and remediated memories of violence that are mostly excised from official history. Thus, in this article I read selected poems from Soro Soke, a poetry collection curated by Brittle Paper in collaboration with James Yeku and Jumoke Verissimo. My aim is to examine how the poetic responses to the Lekki massacre generate alternative, unvarnished historiographies that call attention to the haunting and brooding presence of Nigeria’s brutal past in the present. I am also interested in the ways in which the selected works act as archives of violent memories and how they seek to recover the humanity of those killed by naming them and grieving their loss.

Preventing False Memories and Revitalizing Collective Memory with the Help of Historical Cartographic Materials and GIS: An Examination of the Lost Piers of Mersin

ABSTRACT Piers are vital elements in the formation of collective memory in Mediterranean port cities and they played an important role in Mersin's urban life until the 1950s. Although there are some oral history-based studies attempting to spatialize them, they lack any measure of accuracy and reliability, and carry the risk of leading to false memories. In this context, the aim of this paper is to illustrate that collective memory can be properly reconstructed by using historical maps only if appropriate methods of analysis and reliable maps are used. In this study, which is based on various historical maps of Mersin city, the locations of the lost piers have been determined by using georeferencing tools available in QGIS. The study reveals that the tendency to construct false memories could be prevented by using reliable maps and appropriate tools in GIS in combination with the archive records.

Memories lost: A history of accounting records as forms of projection

This paper develops a theoretical history of the intricate relationship between accounting as a recording technology and memory, arguing that accounting's influence extends beyond mere financial documentation to shape human memory and projections into the past and the future. Drawing on Stiegler's theory of transindividuation, understood as the trans-formation of individuals, groups and technologies, and his emphasis on technology-mediated memory, we propose that varying types of accounting records cultivate different memory forms by fostering spatiotemporal projections which reshape the societal perception and comprehension of accounting. Our analysis relies on a comparison between two decentralized transaction recording systems similar in their operations, but which emerged in two different eras: blockchain and early double-entry bookkeeping. Our approach draws from Haydu (1998) to identify similarities and contrasts between different periods which can emphasize the uniqueness of each, while conceptualizing long-term trends. By juxtaposing DEB and BC as instances of decentralized records, the study postulates a critical shift in accounting's transindividuation over time. We argue that while DEB's norms of recording aided in the formation of collective memory and long-term projections, turning records into objects of social investment, BC's recording, propelled by automation and an economic emphasis, manifests as an isolated numerical sequence hindering the scope of human projections. We posit that compared to early DEB, BC recording, although it holds the potential for democratization, may lead to divisions between users, among themselves, and with their records. We discuss the potential implications of this trans-dividuation process for notions of accountability, transparency, regulation, and the broader political role of accounting in society.

Boat dwellers and maritime heritage in Hong Kong: coming ashore to Yue Kwong Chuen (Fishing Lights Estate)

ABSTRACT Hong Kong’s cultural heritage and tourism offerings include several prominent symbols and legacies drawn from the waters that surround it, including dragon boat racing, Tin Hau temples honouring the Goddess of the sea, and iconic junk boats sailing on the harbour. Within the growing field of Hong Kong heritage studies, however, there has been little work addressing these and other aspects of its maritime past. This paper addresses this contradiction, of the simultaneous presence and absence of maritime heritage. It does so by considering the story of the ‘coming ashore’ (上岸) of people who lived on boats in the fishing centre of Aberdeen on the south side of Hong Kong Island. In the 1960s, many of them moved into Yue Kwong Chuen, an early public housing estate which is now being redeveloped. Drawing on archival research and oral history interviews, we consider the significance of the estate as an important example of the heritage of public housing that sheds light on the status of boat dwellers, excluded for centuries in South China, and their eventual incorporation into land-based society. The paper contributes new insights on collective memory and identity formation in Hong Kong under and after colonial rule.

Kroppsminne och kollektiv erfarenhet: Objektiveringens betydelse för produktionen av arbetarlitteraritet

Literature is the memory of a culture: whether included in the canon or not, it testifies to conceptions, mentalities, and conditions in its time. Working-class literature is a young literary type, that for long was excluded from the canon and recognized literary tradition, and therefore has a special relationship to memory, experience, and culture. The first Swedish working-class writers were self-taught, without access to the bourgeois cultural heritage. They were workers, writing about workers, for workers and addressing the class collective. But they were also individuals, who started from their own memories and experiences. How did they go about making their own thing a matter for the whole class? How did they integrate the personal into a collective memory culture? That is the main issue in my article. The task is to shed light on the relationship between individual experience and collective memory in the first generation of Swedish working-class prose around 1910.I will dive into this subject matter by employing the notion of literary objectification, understood as creating vivid images, scenes, and situations from personal memories and experiences serving as an objective correlate (T.S. Eliot). The function of this correlate is to evoke recognition at a distance in the implied reader: an alienated recognition (Viktor Shklovsky), or a kind of sustained Verfremdung (Bertolt Brecht), which also includes contemplation and reflection. A working objective correlate, as I understand it here, must be based on some form of collective memory. I want to develop this idea with the support of memory studies, specifically, works by cultural researcher Jan Assmann and phenomenologist Thomas Fuchs.
 The reasoning will then be tested on some text examples from the working-class authors Dan Andersson (1888–1920), Maria Sandel (1870–1927), and Karl Östman (1876–1953). In particular, I will dwell on depictions of physical labour, the body memories that are objectified, and the extent to which such objectification produces a special proletarian literariness.

Remembering Thind

As United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind becomes an important site of collective memory and identity formation, the hundred-year anniversary of the decision presents itself as an occasion for critical reflection about how we make sense of this particular past, our identification within it, and its relevance to our contemporary moment. Thind has been read primarily as a case about the racial identification of Indians in the United States and their racialized exclusion from citizenship. This essay explores some of the limits of that framing, arguing that it tends to reify legal constructions of racial difference while obscuring the imperial dimensions of the case, namely Thind’s involvement with the transnational anticolonial Ghadar movement. Moreover, to remember the case as primarily one about racial injury consigns us to liberal frameworks of rights and recognition and to recapitulating nationalist narratives of racialized exclusion and earned inclusion, leaving unexamined the role that neoliberal immigration policies have played in conditioning Asian migration since the 1960s. Rather than continuously retrace the racial wounds inflicted by Thind, the memorialization of the case might focus on the continuing relevance of the anticolonial and anticapitalism movements that so excited the political imagination of Thind and his contemporaries. Such radical remembering might enable us to disrupt imposed forms of racial identity, as well as the liberal frameworks within which they are embedded, to rehearse the kinds of collaboration needed to confront ongoing crisis of colonial capitalism.

The Shaping of Japan’s Collective Memory in Yoko Ogawa’s The Memory Police

Historically, the collective memory of Japanese society was shaped through narratives created by the authorities. The mechanism of power in the formation of collective memory can be seen through the process of censorship as a tool used to erase certain public perceptions during the Meiji period to the beginning of the Showa Period. The preservation of power in the hands of Japan’s elites created control of the people in terms of what they should know, remember, and act according to the narration that fitted the agenda of these elites. This paper examines the process of the shaping of collective memory in Japan prior to the three periods from Meiji to early Showa. This study uses a novel by Yoko Ogawa titled The Memory Police as a sites of memory to examine the shaping of collective memory in Japanese society. This paper is a qualitative research and uses Foucault’s theory of power and Michels’ theory of elites, as well as Nora’s notion of sites of memory as theoritical framework. The research found that all of these aspects of power mechanism in a form of censorship in those three periods of Japan’s past and the role of elites that used their influence to eradicate informations contributed to the shaping of collective memory. Moreover, The Memory Police as a novel came as a sites of memory that belongs to the society that tried to resist and contest the official narration of Japan’s collective memory.

The Work of Acknowledgment: ‘Loud Fence’ as Community-Level Response to Institutional Child Sexual Abuse Testimony

Since the 1980s, the global dimensions of institutional child sexual abuse have become increasingly apparent. In some countries this has had a profound impact locally. In Australia, one such place has been the storied town of Ballarat. Throughout Australia's Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, Ballarat became a significant focus of the Inquiry. As local abuse became clearer, colourful ribbons began appearing at sites throughout the town. This article investigates the meaning of such a response, and its role in relation to survivor testimony. Transforming into a movement that persists to this day, the effect is to reconsolidate a community's ‘difficult heritage’ of institutional abuse into a more celebrated story of rebellion and protest. The originality of the article stems from the contribution it makes to understanding community-level responses to institutional abuse, and the role of ritual in the formation of collective memory.

Power-curriculum, collective memory, and alternative approaches in learning history

This study analyzes the curriculum's influence, collective memory formation, and alternative approaches to learning history. This research was carried out using qualitative methods with a descriptive approach. The data in this study consisted of 3 sources: informants, documents, and learning activities. Data analysis applied Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). The research findings show that, as a reference document, the curriculum also has a negative impact on teachers, one of which is the perception that the curriculum is a rigid document and inhibits teacher freedom. So that in learning history, collective memory is formed based on official history, which is very difficult for teachers to provide information about alternative history. Teachers must implement alternative learning approaches such as humanism, critical pedagogy, and reflective approaches. To create a more enjoyable learning atmosphere and to accommodate all groups in Indonesia to be involved in discussing the history of their nation, which is humane and free from grudges and hatred.

Co‐temporality and Sovremennost': Late Imperial and Early Soviet Photographs

Co‐temporality and <i>Sovremennost'</i>: Late Imperial and Early Soviet Photographs

The UNESCO Memory of the World Programme and claims for recognition of atrocities: The nominations of Documents of Nanjing Massacre and Voices of the ‘Comfort Women’

This article explores the use of the UNESCO Memory of the World programme in claims for recognition of atrocities, focusing on two recent nominations: Documents of Nanjing Massacre and Voices of the ‘Comfort Women’. We argue that amid domestic and international contestation of memories and historical accounts, cultural programmes, such as the Memory of the World, have become increasingly politicised and used to push for international recognition of past atrocities. The article reflects on the character of the Memory of the World programme and the core reasons for nominations to such programmes. It also considers the possible consequences of registration as it transposes the heritage of memory from the local to the global stage (and back) and in the process subjects both memory and heritage to various forms of authorised transformation and reification. We bring attention to how official recognition by the Memory of the World affects ongoing collective memory formation, and express concerns about the appropriation of individual and local memories, as they are granted universal value.

De-Commemoration as a Factor of Collective Memory Formation in South America

The article focuses on de-commemoration, i.e. the elimination of monuments and other objects with historical meaning, in South American countries. The goal is to analyse the examples of these processes found in different countries of the region, using a new typology of this yet insufficiently studied phenomenon, proposed by sociologists Tracy Adams and Yinon Guttel-Klein. There are examples of de-commemoration linked to democratization of socio-political and, consequently, cultural space in the region, as well as the revision of monumental heritage in the context of changing perceptions of society and some of its influential segments of the country's past or their transition from verbal rejection of certain objects to destructive actions. The novelty of the study lies in the use of the new typology, originally applied to the analysis of the Israeli experience, in the study of memorial objects in South America and the analysis of diverse memorial units and country-specific features of the processes of de-commemoration, namely desecration and reframing, primarily in Paraguay and Colombia. One of the main conclusions of the study is the possibility of de-commemoration in the studied region in relation to objects belonging to chronologically and essentially different historical periods and phenomena. The author also reveals the multifunctionality of de-commemoration. Finally, it has been found that the interest of the state in the implementation of memory policy in general and de-commemoration in particular often plays a decisive role in the implementation of projects in this sphere.

The Voids of Mariupol's Memory

Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 has left some Ukrainian cities in ruins. The towns occupied by Russian troops have become peculiar testing grounds for de-Ukrainianisation and battlegrounds of memory, where occupiers attempt to establish dominant narratives. The authors of this article aimed to examine these processes through the urban memory landscape of Mariupol. This landscape is considered a part of cultural memory, preserved and actualised through material carriers, including the city’s architectural appearance. Urban space and its transformations are seen as successive layers of memory, illustrating a particular memory hierarchy in Mariupol’s landscape across different periods. Attention is also drawn to the decision-making nature of the city authorities regarding urban development over the last hundred years. These decisions have not only shaped the urban landscape and determined a specific way of its interaction with citizens but also influenced the authorities’ vision of the city’s image and its impact on the formation of collective memory. The transformations in Mariupol throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries illustrate how it has become a battleground of memories, a place of forced forgetting. The text highlights how the forgetting and silencing of history have become mechanisms for manipulating collective memory. These processes are reflected in the urban space and the identity of its citizens. An overview of the changing landscape of memory between 2016 and 2022 is also provided. Regarding the formation of collective memory, the text demonstrates the changes in the landscape during the city's occupation in 2022, particularly the processes of imperative change in the urban memory landscape and the attempts of the occupation authorities to create visual images and narratives that form a new memory landscape.

Representation of the Historical Memory of the Great Patriotic War in the Historical and Cultural Landscape of the Cross-Border Region

The article deals with the formation and representation of the historical memory of the Great Patriotic War in the cross-border territory of the Augustów Canal (the border areas of Belarus, Poland and Lithuania). The subject of the research is the fates of the servicemen of the 68th Grodno Fortified Region, who were the first to receive the attack of the Nazi troops in June 1941. The research uses the archival documents, published and unpublished memoirs of the direct participants of the events, results of the research of the battlefields on the territory of Belarus and Poland. The author believes that for the formation and representation of collective historical memory and identity the results of research using special historical methods and active use of various forms of commemorative practices are relevant: publication of scientific and popular scientific literature, which popularizes the historical and cultural heritage of the region, inclusion of monuments and memorial places in the State List of Historical and Cultural Values, installation of monuments, memorial signs and information posts, development of tourist routes and carrying out military-historical reconstructions, creation of museums and museum expositions.

Digitalization and Collective Memory: Thoughts Reading a Book “Individual and Collective Memory in the Digital Age”

The “cultural turn” in social and humanitarian knowledge has led to the intensive development of various aspects of the problem of collective representations and related models of forming the identity of a community. A lot of modern research is devoted to the problem how people perceive events that they are contemporaries or participants, how they preserve and relay information about these events. The process of total digitalization of society that has taken place in recent decades also leaves its mark on the mechanisms of formation and retransmission of collective memory. These problems are the focus of the monograph published in 2022 and edited by a team of authors led by Elena Trufanova, Natalya Emelyanova, Aleksandra Yakovleva.

Between the Soviet Past and National History: to the Issue of a New Kazakh Identity

The article deals with the impact of the politics of memory on the process of national identity formation, which is topical for the domestic political science. It is shown that the politics of memory always deals with different types of collective memory (age, gender, national, religious and other differences), which are built in the form of projection of the past into indefinite and open future, or in the form of questioning of the past from the present. These differences appear as a mediating link in the process of identity constitution. The various ideas, values, symbols and meanings of a cultural or religious kind existing in society allow groups to challenge the identity of the entire community and at the same time maintain the existence of a common identity of the community as a whole. However, it is important, that these relative variations do not become frozen in their existence and do not develop into absolute ruptures and divisions. It is these principles underlie formation of the politics of memory. The process of influence of the politics of memory on the formation of national identity is considered in the article on the example of Kazakhstan identity formation in the post-Soviet period. The authors analyze various state programs the politics of memory; analyze statistical data obtained in the course of sociological research on the peculiarities of the formation of collective memory in the Republic of Kazakhstan. The study concludes that Soviet values in Kazakhstan still play a role for the outgoing generation, born and raised in the USSR, while the younger generation replaces them with modern Western values, which also does not contribute to the preservation of national specificity and recognition of the state as an independent, separate sovereign entity. And if traditions used to fit into the dominant all-Soviet context, nowadays they should fit into the postmodern project.