Intergenerational Memory Research Articles

The Feel of Peace: Noise Pollution and the Sovereignty of Wind

Abstract: This essay analyzes the interconnected struggles of US military occupation in Okinawa and Hawai'i through analysis of noise pollution, aircraft crashes, and community responses to these issues. While the violence of airbases transforms air into a space of violence, I turn to the ways that Okinawan and Hawaiian communities articulate their respective sovereignties through the wind. I read legal testimonies from the first noise pollution lawsuit in Okinawa and community testimonies from across O'ahu, putting them in conversation with poetry by Nakazato Yūgō and Brandy Nālani McDougall. Against military reports that implicate wind as a threat which facilitates aircraft accidents and death, the testimony and poetry elucidate how wind builds relation and enables the preservation of intergenerational memory. This archive challenges state formulations of "resolution" by elucidating how deeper histories than the state has considered press onto the body, carrying into the present not only historical wounds but also the capacity for their healing. The sovereignty of wind that they put forth marks a renewal of relationships to air and memory at the same time they are organized around radical returns of land, of night, of the body itself.

H2O2 priming: Biostimulation, drought tolerance and DNA methylation profile with intergenerational impact in tobacco plant

H2O2 is a promising priming agent due to its role in stress-response pathways and in the regulation of gene expression. Several studies have shown that H2O2 elicitation improves stress responses. However, information regarding of the intergenerational stress memory of the H2O2 priming is limited. Therefore, in this study, we evaluated the stress memory induced by H2O2 priming in tobacco plants by testing hydric stress phenotypic response and changes in DNA methylation in the parental priming line and in the next generation. Priming consisted of three foliar applications of 200 mM H2O2 every 5 days on 4-week-old plants. DNA methylation profiling was performed by Whole Genome Bisulphite Sequencing (WGBS). Hydric stress challenge consisted of three conditions: control (100 %), moderate (40–45 %) and severe (20–25 %) stress according to the available water field capacity. Plant response to the challenge was evaluated by morphological, biochemical, and molecular attributes. The results showed that H2O2 priming displayed a biostimulant effect on vegetative and root development, preventing growth stunting under drought conditions. Plant antioxidant activity was enhanced, as reflected by the decrease in endogenous H2O2. In drought conditions, proline content, CAT activity and gene expression of CHS, PIP1 and AQP1 genes were enhanced in the primed-plants (H), their progeny (F1), and the primed-progeny group (FH). DNA methylation profile revealed 795 differentially methylated cytosines (DmCs) in the progeny, with 89 associated with genes involved in cellular response to environmental stimuli. An interaction network highlighted stress response with flavoreductase enzyme as central interaction node, and in the second layer the Repressor of Silencing 1 (ROS1) gene. Thus, the findings suggest that H2O2 priming may induce intergenerational memory, presenting a potentially cost-effective strategy in stress management in agriculture.

Effect of Arc gene on intergenerational memory

Effect of Arc gene on intergenerational memory

Momentum accelerates evolutionary dynamics

We combine momentum from machine learning with evolutionary dynamics, where momentum can be viewed as a simple mechanism of intergenerational memory similar to epigenetic mechanisms. Using information divergences as Lyapunov functions, we show that momentum accelerates the convergence of evolutionary dynamics including the continuous and discrete replicator equations and Euclidean gradient descent on populations. When evolutionarily stable states are present, these methods prove convergence for small learning rates or small momentum, and yield an analytic determination of the relative decrease in time to converge that agrees well with computations. The main results apply even when the evolutionary dynamic is not a gradient flow. We also show that momentum can alter the convergence properties of these dynamics, for example by breaking the cycling associated to the rock–paper–scissors landscape, leading to either convergence to the ordinarily non-absorbing equilibrium, or divergence, depending on the value and mechanism of momentum.

Constructing the tellability of intergenerational memory narratives in collective remembering in StoryCorps, a digital memory-sharing platform

In the present contribution, I explore how telling intergenerational memory episodes ensures the narrative tellability and memorability of autobiographical memories in StoryCorps, a digital memory-sharing platform and archive. I first pinpoint the structural and conceptual connections between narrative and autobiographical, intergenerational, and collective memory, highlighting the possible effects of digitalization and archiving on narrative structure. Then, I analyze four autobiographical stories with intergenerational family memories from the StoryCorps database to demonstrate how the storyteller constructs tellability and memorability by strategically centering the intergenerational memory episode. I conclude that sharing individual memories on digital storytelling platforms accomplishes complex identity work for two reasons. First, it facilitates the narrative transformation of these remembered events into digitally mediated collective memory. Second, storytelling becomes a source of agency and cultural responsibility. With its focused analysis of digitalized private memories, the article contributes to understanding how digital storytelling and memory-sharing mediate mnemonic practices by recording, storing, editing, and sharing autobiographical memory narratives for undetermined audiences in an indefinite time frame.

Intergenerational transmission of social memory: a narrative review1

Societies employ mechanisms to pass on their knowledge through generations. The intergenerational transmission of social memory has become a relatively recent field, gaining increased interest over the past four decades. This article provides a narrative review of the literature on this topic. Findings reveal that memory transmission is influenced by factors that either facilitate or hinder discussions about the past within the family environment. These factors include silence, emotion, the contingency of daily communication and social-level memory characteristics. While official memory often prevails over family memory, the richness of family narratives lies in their ability to offer unique perspectives that may contradict official accounts. The study concludes that family memories may be at a higher risk of fading into social silence and oblivion. Intergenerational memory thrives when there is a plurality of memories within the broader society, emphasising the importance of diverse perspectives in preserving collective memory.

To Know Every Part: Theorizing Craft Narratives Via Fae Myenne Ng’s Bone

Published nearly thirty years ago, Fae Myenne Ng’s debut novel, Bone, has become a canonical work of Asian American literature for its domestic portrayal of a multi-generational Chinese American family. This article demonstrates how fiction offers a means to theorize contemporary craft. As the daughter of a seamstress, Ng utilizes her own intimate knowledge of industrial and domestic sewing to develop the emotions and intergenerational memories of characters in the novel. In doing so, Bone locates crafting subjects, their work and the handmade objects themselves within a legacy of Chinese exclusion and the ongoing racialized and gendered labor exploitation of Chinese immigrants. In this context, the fictional narrative pushes craft theorists and practitioners alike to instigate essential questions about what registers as craft and the role of narrative in this process. In particular, I focus on a persistent binary of handmade and mass-produced that shapes many dominant narratives of craft. By attending to this binary, we may analyze how dominant narratives actively make use of and reconfigure social constructs like gender and race to elicit certain perceptions (wittingly or unwittingly) about craft, craftspeople, their labors, and the value placed upon them.

History in Person: Intergenerational Memory in Young Literary Life Writing

This essay discusses popular life writing by younger Danish writers descending from immigrants. It focuses on selected works, within the last two decades, that all have had significant presence in public sphere debates or caused controversy. The books in different ways addresses struggles around intergenerational memory and it is argued that the works can be seen as ways of trying to re-approach life in an ambiguous as well as insightful engagement with one’s heritage as well as a majority culture.

Performances of Intergenerational Memory as Memorial: The Forgotten Diaspora Remembered by the Muzeum Pamięci Sybiru

Performances of Intergenerational Memory as Memorial: The Forgotten Diaspora Remembered by the Muzeum Pamięci Sybiru

Memory Politics of Mass Graves and Commemoration: Korea’s Cheju April 3rd Incident

This article enquires into questions of state violence, cultural trauma, commemoration, and memory politics with respect to the Cheju April 3rd Incident or “the 4.3” (1947-1954), which is regarded as the precursor of the Korean War. After the Special Law for Investigation of the Truth about the Cheju April 3 Incident was established in 2000 by the government, “the 4.3” was officially recognized as a case of state violence and civilian massacres. Due to long-term enforced silence and suppression of “the 4.3 memory,” however, the divergence between state memory and local individuated memory has created conflict over the identity of the victims of mass killing, the commemoration of the event, and the complex politics of postmemory. Drawing on Hirsch’s concept of “postmemory” (the type of inter-generational memory that mediates the past memory in its affective force), this paper explores the way in which this divergence is mediated in commemoration rituals of ancestor worship and reburial of dead bodies exhumed from mass graves. As material evidence of mass killing and its affective presence, the remains “animate” political action for moral judgement about responsibility for massacres. Placing the dead in a proper family tomb or public enshrinement hall shared with other mass dead in the 4.3 Peace Park becomes the most significant concerns of the bereaved families. It shows how state involvement in the management of remains and ancestral veneration custom continues to exert an influence on the surviving families of the dead as well as the victims of the 4.3. In opposition to the structural state intervention, there persisted a community action that continually repaired the loss of social relations and restored communal history through creating the children’s collective grave and family cemetery and inventing island-wide shamanic rituals in the public sphere. In this article, we witness the community of death and loss, which is newly formed through cultural trauma and restorative justice in the post-atrocity era.

Genealogical Memory and Its Function in Bridging the ‘Floating Gap’

The concept of genealogical memory is commonly presumed to be synonymous with family or intergenerational memory. However, this paper asserts the necessity for a more detailed examination, seeking to refine and contextualize these notions from a genealogist’s perspective. Exploring the focal point of this study, genealogical memory unveils distinctive characteristics that warrant meticulous scrutiny. Foremost among these characteristics is its intentional nature and inherently reconstructive essence, enabling the recollection of long-deceased ancestors and contemplation of their fates. Consequently, genealogical memory proves invaluable in bridging the ‘floating gap’ between communicative and cultural memory, as posited by Jan Vansina’s conceptualization. The primary objective of this article is to comprehensively explore and structure the concept of genealogical memory, with a particular focus on the genealogist’s role as a memory-maker.

The influence of risk perception on disaster recovery: A case study of new Jersey families impacted by hurricane sandy

IntroductionRisk perceptions of extreme weather events have been explored extensively through the lens of emergency preparation, but the influence of pre-storm risk perceptions on resilience and recovery trajectories are understudied. The objective of this qualitative analysis is to explore 1) the factors which shaped residents' perception of risk prior to the event, and 2) how these factors contributed to ‘sensemaking,’ after the storm to influence experiences of recovery. MethodsEight focus groups and ten in-depth interviews (N = 38) from the Hurricane Sandy Child Impact Study were analyzed using grounded theory. The sample comprised of New Jersey residents who experienced housing damage or displacement during Hurricane Sandy. Verbatim transcripts were coded using iterative phases of open, axial, and selective coding. ResultsGrounded theory analysis identified three major themes: 1) Local ecological knowledge and place-based intergenerational memory shaped respondents’ initial risk perceptions, their framing of the event, and its consequences; 2) Unclear institutional decision-making complicated recovery planning and actions; 3) Inaccurate pre-storm risk perceptions led to traumatic memories and decreased self-efficacy in managing recovery. This mismatch in perception and outcome led participants to feel that they had been ill-informed before and during the storm and created skepticism of government recommendations and services during the recovery phase. ConclusionsLocal ecological knowledge and intergenerational memory are critical factors that shape pre-storm risk perception and can subsequently influence trust in officials, service utilization, and perceptions of recovery. Themes identified in this analysis suggest the need for future longitudinal research to investigate the extent to which pre-storm risk perception is predictive of post-disaster recovery and resilience.

The Current Landscape of Studies Involving Intergenerational Letter and Email Writing: A Systematic Scoping Review and Textual Narrative Synthesis

The COVID-19 pandemic has prompted a renewed interest in intergenerational letter and email writing. Evidence shows that expressive writing, including letter writing, has a number of benefits including improved literacy and perceived well-being, and it can also facilitate a deep connection with another person. This scoping review provides an overview of the existing research on letter and email writing between different age cohorts. Of the 471 articles retrieved from Scopus, CINAHL, PsycINFO, MEDLINE, Academic Search Premier, and Web of Science, 17 studies met the inclusion criteria and were critically appraised and synthesized in this review. The studies were grouped into two themes according to their stated aims and outcomes: (a) studies exploring changes in perceptions, and (b) studies relating to skills development and bonds. The results showed a range of benefits for intergenerational letter writers, from more positive perceptions of the other age group, through improved writing skills and subject knowledge, to forming intergenerational memories and bonds. The review also highlights some of the limitations of the current research and formulates recommendations for future studies in the fields of writing studies, intergenerational research, and educational gerontology.

Traumatic Peregrinations: Intergenerational Memory and Migration in Nina Bunjevac’s Fatherland

Traumatic Peregrinations: Intergenerational Memory and Migration in Nina Bunjevac’s Fatherland

Inherited traumas in diaspora: postmemory, past-presencing and mobilisation of second-generation Kurds in Europe

ABSTRACTThis article examines the way in which conflict-generated diasporas pass on collective memories of a violent past onto the next generation. It contributes to uncovering the intergenerational memory transmission patterns in the diaspora by examining how new generations inherit the experiences of a violent past from their parents and mobilise and demobilise around issues concerning such past. By focusing on the Kurdish diaspora as a case study, the authors suggest that diasporas gradually form collective memories that may align with or differ from the narratives of those who stayed in their home countries. The collective memory of diasporic communities is also shaped by various factors related to their new countries of residence. This diasporic memory is ever evolving, influenced by each new generation that not only inherits but also reinterprets the shared memories, asserting their own agency in this ongoing process.

“Our community needs to heal”: Using Photovoice to Explore Intergenerational Memories of Civil War with Young Central Americans in Toronto

In 2020, our research collective facilitated a photovoice project titled “Picturing Our Realities: Arts-based Reflections with Central American Youth in Canada,” which brought together young, second-generation, and one-and-a-half-generation (born in another country and moved at a young age) Central American identifying people in Toronto to talk about their experiences growing up as children of immigrants. This photovoice project reveals the ways the civil war and migration process is a haunting presence in the lives of second and 1.5 generation Central American Canadians as they grow up and carve their paths as adults. We can see how unresolved social conflict emerges and shapes family memory, sense of self, understandings of community, and means of engaging in community activism and community work. We argue that this act of remembering and paying homage to previous generations is a means of confronting and resisting past injustices and forming ways of healing from the afterlives of violence. This recognition of the afterlives of mass violence, and the calls of action that this recognition entails, may form a powerful catalyst for community organizing and creating community spaces to respond to historical hauntings and structural violence.

Postmemory dreaming: Nightmares of war in third‐generation descendants of Polish and Russian survivors of World War II

AbstractVarious manifestations of intergenerational memory transmission have been discussed in many scientific fields. Surprisingly, little attention has been paid to these phenomena in the context of dreams. Yet, the sphere of dreaming seems the most informative illustration of how the tragic past influenced the second and third‐generation descendants of trauma survivors. Based on my talks with two descendants of WWII survivors—a Russian woman and a Polish man—I define “postmemory dreams” as night visions affected by cultural representations of historical events. The theoretical background of my study is Hirsch's concept of postmemory, Hall's continuity hypothesis of dreaming, and anthropological dream research. Postmemory dreams reflect and are shaped by the ethos of remembering and commemorating the war—the ethos often imposed by political forces and propaganda—in which the dreamers live. In the cases of my interviewees, these are the Polish ethos of victimhood and the Russian ethos of heroism.

Bodily secret(ion)s: Ulrike Draesner'sgedächtnisschleifen(1995)

AbstractFor Ulrike Draesner, there are clear parallels between West Germany in the 1950s and Germany during the years following reunification. Taking as its starting point Draesner's remark that memory must be viewed as a construct, this article explores embodied intergenerational memory in her debut poetry volumegedächtnisschleifen(1995).gedächtnisschleifenhas been commonly read alongside the poetry of Durs Grünbein, Thomas Kling, and other post‐Wende writers who represent divided Berlin as an opened, emaciated body. This article, however, takes a different angle, arguing thatgedächtnisschleifenrenders the body as a memory apparatus: Memory takes on the quality of a physical force or secretion, passed among bodies and across generations. Moreover, this article contends that Draesner reflects on and negotiates the role of third‐generation poetry vis‐à‐vis Germany's Nazi past.

Decolonizing trauma studies: A critically reflexive examination of epistemic trauma and intergenerational memory, and its implications for conflict-fleeing migrant diaspora communities

• The operationalization of PTSD in describing and treating refugees is inadequate. • Applying HT theory & practice necessitates critical consciousness and the absence of neutrality. • Testimonial injustice in refugee claims functions to perpetuate epistemic trauma. • Frame narrative silences as purposeful, political components of intergenerational memory. • Honouring silences is just as important as breaking them.

Book Review

“Aside from her children, words were my mother’s most valued possessions” writes Naomi Shmuel in a poignant chapter titled “Between Grief and Celebration” (p. 199). These two, twinned, possessions—words and family—echo throughout this important collection, which explores the innumerable ways that the Holocaust, its experiences, and its aftermaths have been inscribed and translated. Drawing from and building on the field of Jewish intergenerational memories of the Holocaust, through the breadth of the chapters and contributors, Translated Memories: Transgenerational Perspectives on the Holocaust offers a significant new contribution. This book comes out of a 2015 workshop on literature and Holocaust memory, expanded here in scope, approach, and geographic coverage. The book is divided into five sections: “Language and Memory,” “Making Sense of the Parents’ Holocaust History,” “1.5 Generation,” “Objects and What to Make of Them,” and “Members of the Second and Third Generations in Quest of Their Identity.” In this way, a broad scope of writing about, and translating the memories of, the Holocaust is covered. We come to understand some of the differences—and the similarities—of the ways that people from different places, generations, and relationships to the Holocaust narrate and translate their memories. How, that is, knowledge about and interpretations of the Holocaust are translated. Multiple chapters contain autobiographical accounts, and deeply moving stories of personal connections that were built and developed over generationsthrough the sharing of histories. As numerous authors show, there has been a shift in the spoken languages used by Jewish survivors who experienced the war. It is important to investigate these languages and translations, to come to grips with the many ways the Holocaust can be articulated.