It Takes a Tragedy to Arouse Them: Collective Memory and Collective Action during the Civil Rights Movement

This paper examines the impact that collective memories of key events related to the civil rights movement had on black political activism during the 1960s. It proposes a theory that examines the effects of collective memory on collective action by considering how events and collective memories are appropriated by political entrepreneurs for collective action. Examining four events through a rare opinion survey of blacks taken in 1966, the analysis specifies a framework that illustrates how events evolve into collective memories and how collective memories are appropriated for collective action as time passes from the original event. Qualitative materials from historical accounts, including autobiographies, biographies, and oral histories, are used to make inferences about the meaning of events to political actors. The analysis shows that one event among the four, the murder of Emmett Till, had a stronger residual effect on black activism than the other events. The findings suggest that scholarship on the movement may have underestimated the impact of Till's murder on the generation of black insurgency in the 1950s.     

“It Did Not Affect Me”: The (IR)Relevance of the German Reunification in Autobiographical Narratives of East Germans

How do individuals make sense of events that are associated with major social‐systemic changes? The paper explores the relationship between “German reunification” and processes of meaning making and identity formation by former citizens of the German Democratic Republic. Analyzing twenty‐six in‐depth, life‐history interviews of East Germans born in two different generational cohorts, I examine the various narrative strategies employed that allow these East Germans to embed the experience of the German reunification through means of narrative emplotment. Diverting from a notion that it is historical events that shape our autobiographical memories, I argue that historical events are selected from a historical tool kit which provides individuals with narrative resources from which narrative identity can be formulated. A video abstract is available at https://youtu.be/d69JXE0Ryqw .     

Narrating Genocide: Time,Memory, and Blame

More than 20 years have passed since the Rwandan genocide, yet we know little about how Rwandans remember the violence. This article draws upon more than 100 interviews with genocide survivors to assess collective memories of the atrocity. We find that survivors organize their narratives by conceptualizing the genocide as a watershed event that divides time into two distinct eras. When discussing the pregenocide period, survivors focus on macrolevel events and structures, locating blame for the genocide in institutions rather than on Rwandan citizens. By contrast, narratives of life after the genocide focus on perceived progress since 1994. We interpret these findings in light of the state's memory projects, the potential functionality of the memories, and the time needed for collective memories to resonate.     

Collective memory and intergroup relations

Abstract

The paper stresses the utility of a closer link between recent reassessments of social and collective dimensions of memory and the lines of research on intergroup relations. We maintain that by this link, suprisingly not fully explored to date, both fields could profit significantly. On one side, it is possible to highlight the crucial role of collective memories in the definition of identities and of boundaries of groups. On the other side, it could be argued that the study of the ways in which collective and social memories are actually performed in intergroup context may improve the understanding of the processes involved. In our opinion, a full development of this link have been hindered by a widely diffused individualistic reading of some classical contributions in the field of collective memory, and by the growing radicalism of recent socio-constructionist approaches to the same topic. As to the first point, we propose a new reading of Bartlett's work; as to the second, we support the reduction of the clash between cognitive and socio-constructionist approaches on memory research.     

The Generational Effects on Collective Memories in the Context of International Migration: The Collective Memories of Koreans in South Korea and the U.S.

This article examines generational effects on collective memories of Korean history, while taking into account international migration. We asked 216 subjects in South Korea and the United States to name three important events in Korean history and to provide reasons for their selections. We found generational effects in both countries in a similar pattern. This is a remarkable social achievement of the U.S. emigrant subjects. The current study adds a cross-cultural perspective to the literature on collective memories, which has focused predominantly on U.S. and Western case studies. By comparing memories of people who share a national origin but live in different cultural contexts, the current study also intersects collective memories studies in other fields such as transnationalism and diaspora. Our findings suggest that future studies can benefit from a transnational approach to collective memories, which may or may not circulate across borders.     

A small sociology of maternal memory

Memory is an enormously important resource for the social sciences. This paper takes the subject of maternal memory to examine a corpus of work in the sociology of childbirth concerned with how women remember the experience of childbirth. It suggests that the sociology of memory has been more concerned with collective than individual experiences, and that women's memories of childbirth have generally been treated as a special case, rather than as a route to enhanced understandings of how memory works in relation to the all‐important topics of time, identity and social change. Drawing on data from a 37‐year follow‐up to a study of childbirth conducted in the 1970s, it argues that maternal memory shares key characteristics with other kinds of memory, but can be significant in allowing women to reposition themselves as active social selves in a process that is remembered as not allowing much agency or autonomy.     

Subcultural Identity Work in Social Movements: Barriers to Collective Identity Changes and Overcoming Them

Over time, social movements must contend with a vast array of forces that can lead to changes in the movement's collective identity. As such changes may impact the alignment of movements and their membership, this study explores how changes are perceived by members and how they are interactively addressed. Drawing on ethnographic data gathered from two Native American social movement organizations, this study specifically asks why some changes suggested by movement members might be pursued and others are not. While movement members felt that there were a number of barriers to changes in their movements, the study revealed that it was the resonance of collective memories – presented during interactions as narrative commemorations – that encouraged the pursuit of suggested changes or the maintenance of a status quo.     

Personal,Inherited, Collective: Communicating and Layering Memories of Forced Polish Migration

This article concentrates on the specific wartime experiences of Polish émigrés in Britain who were deported from eastern Poland to Siberia in 1940 by Soviet forces. However, rather than considering these experiences in themselves, the focus is on the communication, layering and sharing of these wartime histories. The essay examines how the extraordinary events of war are conveyed in an interview setting; how the Polish émigrés have lived with these memories in their daily lives; the extent to which the children of these migrants have inherited the memories of their parents; and whether there is a wider collective consciousness underpinning the memory of the Siberian deportation.     

Survivors of Woman Abuse

Abstract

The feminist social work and related literature on abused women has focused on women's processes of empowerment but has overlooked the question of women's movement from individual survival to collective resistance. In this feminist qualitative study, I explore the processes through which survivors of abuse by male partners become involved in collective action for social change. Using story telling as a research method, I interviewed 11 women about the processes, factors, insights, and events that prompted them to act collectively to address violence against women. I found that women's movement from individual survival to collective action entails significant changes in consciousness and subjectivity. Women's processes of conscientization are complex, contradictory and often painful because they involve political and psychic dimensions of subjectivity, protracted struggles with contradictions and conflict, and resistance to knowledge that threatens to unsettle relatively stable notions of identity. I suggest that feminist social work theory and practice must take into account three interrelated elements of women's transformative journeys: the discursive and material conditions that facilitate women's movement to collective action; the social, material and psychic costs of women's growth; and the multifaceted and difficult nature of women's journey in recognizing and naming abuse, making sense of their experiences, and acting on this knowledge to work for change. I recommend that feminist social work practice with survivors recognize that survivors can and do contribute to social change, and develop new, more inclusive liberatory models of working with survivors of abuse.     

Generations,Identities, and the Collective Memory of Che Guevara1

Has the image of Che Guevara lost its power to evoke radical politics in the face of pervasive commodification? The commercialization of this 1960s political icon has called into question the power of the market to shape collective memories. Meanwhile, antisystemic movements of the left continue to erect his image at protest events. In light of this contest over how Che Guevara is remembered, we investigate, using data from a survey of Spanish citizens, who is most likely to recall him. We find qualified support for the theory of generational imprinting—Che is more often recalled by those generations who saw him rise to prominence during their formative years, although prominent as a collective symbol rather than as a living person. Our results also corroborate the claim that historical figures or events are more salient for, and therefore more likely to be remembered by, some subgenerational units than others. Thus, although the younger generations are in general more likely than their elders to recall Che, he is most frequently remembered by the highly educated leftists who espouse postmaterialist and posttraditionalist values and identify more with their local regions than with the nation of Spain. These patterns suggest that, in contrast to the dire predictions of mass culture theorists, the memory of Che Guevara has become increasingly tied to markers of social, ethnic‐regional, and political identity.     

Selective Amnesia: Memory and History of the Urfalli Syrian Orthodox Christians

This article analyzes how a community of Syrian Orthodox Christians (Urfallis), who were forced to emigrate from Urfa to Aleppo in 1924, reconstruct their collective history. These displaced Christians maintain silence about two important events in their history. The reason for their emigration and their participation in the Syrian nationalist movement during the 1930s are either wiped from their memories or deliberately concealed. This selective amnesia is conditioned largely by the complex relationship between the ruling elite, whether French or Syrian, and ordinary Urfallis. The process of historical reconstruction suggests that the ambivalent position of these Christians, which stems from their religious affiliation and immigrant origin, makes them design alternative narratives in order to adapt to the changing political situation whilst they establish a secure position for themselves within Syrian society.     

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.     

Now and again: Eventful experience as a resource in senior activism

ABSTRACT

Shared memories shape relations among social movement participants and their organizations. However, scholars often ignore how experience operates as a means of solidifying attachment in group contexts. In contrast, I argue that activism depends on how participants publicly recall events. In this, I integrate a social memory perspective with the examination of activist movements. Through narrative, participants build engagement by presenting the self-in-history as a model for collective action. I refer to this as eventful experience, utilizing memorable moments as a resource for generating commitment. Movements depend upon members communicating the critical moments of their lives, embedding personal timelines in group culture. The linkage of personal experience and public events is a strategy by which individuals motivate collective action. Drawing on a thirty-month ethnography of a progressive senior citizen activist group in Chicago, I examine how members use an awareness of temporality to build a culture of action. Each movement group uses the past experiences of participants to build their culture – what Jasper refers to as taste in tactics, incorporating past successes, present plans, and imagined futures into a call for direct action.     

Mobilizing Memory: Bolivia's Enduring Social Movements

In Bolivia, the most indigenous of South American countries, powerful social movements have drawn on collective memory to build effective coalitions across significant differences in ethnic identity and awareness, class consciousness, generations and regions. We contend that this deployment of memory to strengthen protest identities is reinforced by pervasive indigenous cultural practices. Deeply rooted in oral storytelling, perceptions of time, place and a reverence for ancestors, collective memories help bring the past into the present, and create responsibilities to those who came before. The result is a mutually constituting relationship between memory and activism, where an instrumental construction of collective memories serves to provide shared meanings to divergent movements. We suggest that scholars of social movements could deepen their analysis by interrogating rather than normalizing the cultural backdrops that movements operate within.     

Cohorts, Chronology, and Collective Memories

We asked Americans to tell us the national and world eventsthat they believe to have been especially important since the1930s, using replicated cross-section surveys carried out in1985, in 2000, and after September 11, 2001. Our primary interestsare, first, in how collective memories change as new eventsoccur, such as the end of the Cold War or the 9/11 terroristattack; and second, in whether the origin of such memories duringthe critical period of adolescence and early adulthood, as wellas their connection with education, remain stable over timeand consistent with theory. As part of our investigation weconsider four related issues: collective forgetting as wellas collective remembering; the distinction between ease of recallingevents and judgments of their importance; compound events, whichare composed of sub-events that can be remembered separatelyby respondents; and larger social and technological changesdifficult or impossible to date with any precision. Panel datafrom the second and third surveys, obtained shortly before andafter 9/11, aid in determining which earlier collective memorieswere superseded by memories of the terrorist attack itself.

For I myself can now remember my first day ... more exactly,when I think of it, than all the ones that followed. Imre Kertész,Fateless, on his first day in Auschwitz at age 14

     

Institutional change from within the informal sector in Indian rural labour relations

The paper applies a theory of institutional change enriched with mezzorules, fluidity and agency to India's informal sector institutional evolution using two illustrative examples. The concrete examples are rooted in unfree labour and rural casual labouring in India, a country which has a high degree of informality. Section 1 introduces some concepts, and section 2 examines processes of institutional change in the informal sector. In section 3, two illustrations are explored: (1) the norms for girl child bonded labour; (2) the individualisation of women labourers. Section 4 concludes. The fluidity of institutional rules demands a recognition of the supra-economic nature of the context within which economic-institutional change occurs. We propose the analysis of mezzorules in a dialogic research context, i.e. interactions among workers and collective agents – as a helpful and transformative approach for sociologists specialising in the informal economy.     

Echoes from the Past: Intergenerational Memories in Cyprus

The purpose of this article is to describe young people's awareness of their parents’ and grandparents’ stories of the events of 1974 in Cyprus and to evaluate the extent to which they perceive teachers as other key figures in their lives endorsing family accounts of history. The article is based on focus group discussions with 20 Turkish Cypriot and 20 Greek Cypriot teenagers from two schools in Cyprus. The article describes how in some cases, young people appropriate these memories as their own, while in other cases, they acknowledge how the passing of time dilutes the significance of past events and allows some young people to envisage a different collective future.     

Collective Memory and Collective Fear: How South Africans Use the Past to Explain Crime

The past is a resource that individuals can draw upon as they try to make sense of the world around them, and scholars have long assumed that individuals internalize and utilize collective memories in their daily lives. Yet capturing and analyzing the deployment of collective memory has proven elusive. This paper offers a novel approach for tapping whether, and how, individuals selectively draw on their collective pasts to explain the present. Analyzing interviews with young South African managers and professionals, this paper demonstrates racial variation in how respondents organically introduce the country’s apartheid past as an explanans for current crime, and suggests how these differences are related to divergent levels of commitment by blacks and whites to the South African nation-building project. In so doing, the paper offers a method for examining how individuals selectively use the past to construct, justify, and explain their present-day attitudes and behaviors. The study further highlights the importance of attending not only to what people remember, but also to how they think through and with collective representations of the past.     

The Ban’s mana: post-imperial affect and public memory in Zagreb

ABSTRACT

How might scholars of public memory approach the protean relationship among imperial legacies, nationalized collective memories and urban space from an ‘off-center’ perspective? In this essay, I pursue this question in relation to a monument whose political biography traverses, and troubles, the distinction between imperial and national times, sentiments, and polities. The statue in question is that of Ban Josip Jela?i?, a nineteenth Century figure who was both a loyal servant of the Habsburg Empire and a personification of nascent Croatian and South Slavic national aspirations. Jela?i?'s monument was erected in Zagreb's central square in 1866, only seven years following his death; in the heady political context of the Dual Monarchy, his apotheosis as a figure of regional rebellion caused consternation on the part of the Hungarian authorities. Nor did the statue's controversy end with the Habsburgs. Following World War II, Jela?i?'s embodiment of Croat national pride proved anathema to Yugoslav socialist federalism, and the monument was dismantled in 1947, only to be re-erected following the disintegration of Yugoslavia and Croatian independence in 1991. Accordingly, the statue of Jela?i? is a privileged material medium of and for nationalist memory in Croatia, even as it also conjures ghosts of the city's and state's imperial and socialist pasts. I theorize this play of hegemonic and repressed collective memories through the concepts of public affect and mana, especially in relation to several recent public events that centred on the statue: the memorial to Bosnian-Croat general Slobodan Praljak, who committed suicide during proceedings of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in November 2017, and the celebration of Croatia's achievements in the 2018 World Cup.     

Keeping the Past Alive: Memories of Israeli Jews at the Turn of the Millennium

We asked in an open-ended way in 1999–2000 what national and world events Israeli Jews consider most important from the past 60 years. Ten events were identified as foremost, including three from the time of independence and one that was quite recent. All the major memories are associated with efforts of the state through commemorations and in other ways to create a unitary collective memory. Five social background variables help account for which events are mentioned as most important: birth cohort, education, gender, ethnic origin, and religiosity. Other specific factors such as personal Holocaust experience and voting preferences are also considered.