Promise and challenge of European Memory

Abstract

This introduction identifies the ubiquitous, but controversial, public and academic debate on European Memory as a key for articulating assumptions and expectations about an enhanced process of European integration via references to Europe’s past. The authors outline contradictions that constitute this discourse by pointing to its inherently conflictive potential and carve out the implicit and explicit normative assumptions of European Memory. Albeit acknowledging differences in memories of twentieth-century mass violence, references to European Memory promise to overcome the conflicts inherent in the historical experiences of such violence. Confronting this bias, this special issue postulates an understanding of European Memory as a discursive reality rather than a normative ideal. European Memory becomes manifest whenever actors refer to ‘Europe’ in their interpretations of the past. Further developing an understanding of ‘entangled memory’, the contributions of this special issue share a common interest in the universalizing potential of references to European Memory. They demonstrate how mnemonic practices may lose contextual references and link or even transfer to other memories in order to articulate claims of relevance on a European level.     

跨国主义的移民研究——欧美学者的观点和贡献

在已有研究的基础上,从跨国移民的政治选择、跨国移民的经济贡献、跨国移民的文化再造、跨国移民的活动领域、回归移民的再适应、跨国主义移民研究等多方面介绍和评述了欧美学界跨国主义移民研究的主要观点、基本内容和特征以及学术贡献,并对跨国移民研究中需要进一步探讨的问题进行了梳理.     

Cultural memory, gender and age: young Latvian women's narrative memories of war-time Europe, 1944–1947

This paper examines the war-time experiences of dislocation and loss, as well as the transition to independent adulthood, of 25 Latvian women who came to Britain as European Volunteer Workers after the end of the Second World War. Despite the recent work in cultural history exploring memories of wartime dislocation and the growing use of oral narratives in this exploration, relatively little is known about the 1944 migration from the Baltic States to the UK or about the particular experiences of young women in this movement. This paper begins to address this forgotten history through interviews with now-elderly women living in Britain in the context of recent debates about cultural memory and forgetting.     

Mazzini in Italian historical memory

Abstract

The essay examines the reasons for the difficult ‘reception’ of Mazzini's image in Italy. With particular reference to themes dear to Mazzini, like the role of public monuments and publications, the author explains why Mazzini's image has had a precarious hold on the collective memory of the Italian people. He goes on to offer a brief overview of the revival of Mazzinian scholarship in the last 15 years (1993–2008), underscoring how the renewed interest is related to the ongoing European and global debate on the meaning of democracy. The author concludes with a list of titles appearing since 1993 that suggest new approaches to the study of Mazzini, and that will be of use to scholars and students.     

Spirit knows: materiality,memory and the recovery of Spiritualist places and practices in Stoke-on-Trent

Abstract

Much has been written about constructing memories of place, yet few speak of the difficulties in dealing with lost, partial and fragmented histories of place. We argue that behind the idea of ‘memory of place’ is an assumption that these memories are recoverable and can build a sense of place. Our research has led us to assume the opposite: not just that the fragments of history cannot build a complete memory of place, but that this understanding of memory and place is itself skewed by its reliance on materiality. This paper stems from a project that explores the place of spirituality in everyday life through insights from Spiritualist churches and their congregations. Whilst evidence of Spiritualist locations can be partially obtained through documentary records, a key challenge has been in understanding practices in the context of Spiritualism’s disassociation with materiality and the centrality of Spirit. The paper concludes that retracing Spiritualism’s past, and capturing its contemporary spiritual practices, uncovers a ‘memory of place’ that is not only in constant transience, but that can only be known through Spirit.     

Globalisation and memory

Abstract

We live in the ‘era of disparition’, in Paul Virilio's words. Globalisation causes our common markers to disappear: time is worldly and instantaneous. Perception of space is modified; everything can be in the same place at the same time; places tend to standardise. Communities are baffled by wars, ethnocide, emigration. In the midst of all this, collective memory fights for existence. The motto of museums could be, as Virilio says, ‘searching for signs rematerialising the world’. To counter the deleterious effects of disparition, museums should stress the importance of territory and history. Ecomuseums in particular can become the archetype of social places for meetings, for common elucidation resulting in exhibitions, for remembering collective memory. The museum must help the community undertake not so much a duty of memory as a work of memory. The function of the museum is awakening consciousness in many dimensions.     

The last ‘never again’? Srebrenica and the making of a memory imperative

Abstract

Controversy overshadowed preparations for the twentieth anniversary of the Srebrenica genocide, as conflict arose over the adoption of a number of commemorative resolutions: while motions in the Parliament of Bosnia-Herzegovina and the United Nations Security Council were blocked, the US House of Representatives and the European Parliament did adopt declarations. The article outlines how the memory of Srebrenica was de-contextualized from particular interpretations of the past and re-contextualized in favour of universal frames of interpretation. Starting from the interpretations pertaining to Srebrenica from the early 1990s, processes of dealing with the massacre in reports have made it possible to process the lessons learnt from the experience as a narration of progress. In parallel with efforts to establish legal accountability and a local memorial for the massacre’s victims, there has been a series of resolutions commemorating Srebrenica contributing to the formation of a Srebrenica memory regime. That regime mirrors the Holocaust-based global cultural memory imperative, a set of norms and rules of behaviour that was re-actualized and expanded on by Srebrenica as a symbol for the unfulfilled hope of a final ‘never again’. The commemoration of Srebrenica has become a universal ethical imperative that has spread far beyond the actors involved in the 1995 events. The 2015 controversy has to be understood as a (local) act of resistance against the recognition of Srebrenica as genocide and against the selective character of the Srebrenica memory regime.     

Made in France? The (re-)invention of ‘Mai 68’

Abstract

Whenever young people protest, references to the French ‘Mai 68’ are quickly made. For nearly 50 years, former activists and journalists have turned events in the Latin Quarter in Paris into the main symbol for the potential of youth to pressure governments. Western European politicians and scholars easily index ‘Mai 68’ as the positive core of ‘European Memory’. French accounts during the historical moment initially emphasized, however, the global experience of student unrest. Such interpretations understood mobilization in Mexico, Poland and Nigeria as sharing one horizon of expectation and turned worldwide anti-authoritarian student unrest into an interpretive frame. With the unfolding of events in France, the French narrative shifted from a globally experienced present to a nationally framed ‘évènement’ of the past. This shift from lived experience to memory turned the student mobilization into a succession of French historical events coined ‘les évènements de mai-juin 68’. The commemoration of French events as a paradigmatic case sidelined mobilization in other European, Asian, African and Latin American countries. Meanwhile, this nationalization gave way to a pacified Franco-centred narrative which could be juxtaposed to the European memory scale whilst neglecting its internal contradictions stemming from the diverse European and global peripheries.     

Transnational practices and language maintenance: Spanish and Zapoteco in California

The theoretical framework of transnationalism has become more prominent within migration studies, examining how (im)migrants maintain connections with communities in their homeland (Sánchez, P. 2007a. “Cultural Authenticity and Transnational Latina Youth: Constructing a Meta-narrative Across Borders.” Linguistics and Education 18: 258–282). Children's identities are also affected by maintaining ties to their parents’ homeland through language. In California, a group of (im)migrants from Mexico, of Zapotec-speaking backgrounds, were among the families who wanted their children to maintain their Spanish language by enrolling in a dual immersion school. Although California has exhibited anti-immigrant rhetoric and legislated against bilingual education, some programs supporting heritage language maintenance continue to exist. This article presents interview data from 10 students who attended this school and their parents. Students maintained transnational and intergenerational ties to their families and communities in both Mexico and southern California through the maintenance of Spanish, but a subset of students who spoke Zapoteco as a heritage language also valued this language and used it as social capital.     

Memory that governs by itself? Appropriations of Versailles memory

Abstract

Versailles memory has been a cornerstone of the traditional paradigm of lieux de mémoire. However, its transnational dimension has never been fully explored. Covering more than three centuries, this article identifies three antagonistic patterns of transnational Versailles memory that carry ambivalent references to ‘Europe’: war versus peace; monarchical versus republican legitimization; and universalistic versus particularistic conceptions of power. Actors referred to Versailles’ architecture to substantiate their positions toward French hegemonic ambitions: from counter-buildings by the Sun King’s rivals; political redefinitions during changing regimes after 1789 via Franco-German rivalries in the War of 1870; international reactions to the Peace Conference in 1919; and up to Versailles as a World Heritage Site. Analysing these three constitutive patterns, this article challenges the dominant Franco-centrist Versailles master narrative as non-French actors contested such hegemonic views. References to Versailles as a symbol of both American and Brazilian national independence also bring out global dimensions of Versailles memory.     

The cultural practices of Europeans

Abstract: In recent years, there has been a rapid rise in “atypical”, precarious forms of employment in all European Union states, and the political significance of the issue of “employment in the cultural sector” has increased noticeably. There are several reasons for this. One is the change from a post-industrial economy to a cultural economy and a forced process of economisation of societal welfare-state fields such as health, education and culture. The “marketisation” of culture and the “culturalisation” of the market means that on the one hand “high” culture is becoming increasingly commercial and, on the other, cultural content is increasingly shaping commodity production. These processes run concurrently and are part of a general trend in post-modern society.

The article follows the thesis of a recently published EU study on job potential in the cultural sector [MKW Wirtschaftsforschung GmbH / Österreichische Kulturdokumentation. Internationales Archiv für Kulturanalysen et al., (2001). Exploitation and development of the job potential in the cultural sector in the age of digitalisation (Brussels: European Commission DG Employment and Social Affairs) (summary: http://www.kulturdokumentation.org/eversion/rec_proj/potential.html)] which identifies a new type of employer and/or employee—the “entrepreneurial individual” or “entrepreneurial cultural worker”—who no longer fits into previously typical patterns of full-time professions of the European welfare state system.

The former “cultural worker” has been transitioning into a “cultural entrepreneur” or—as others put it—into a “sole service supplier in the professional cultural field”. According to the historian Heinz Bude's argument, western European societies find themselves in a process of “transformation into flexible, digital capitalism, away from the Keynesian welfare state to a Schumpeterian performance state and a ‘variable geometry of individual incentives’”. What is developing here is the guiding concept of the “entrepreneurial individual”, i.e. individuals who do not follow prescribed standards but who (have to) try out their own combinations and assert themselves on the market and in society. In this context, the creative cultural sector is of broader interest for new labour market concepts and strategies. In addition to the general change, new technology is leading to the emergence of new job profiles in the creative cultural sector so that the image of artists and creators is changing fundamentally. The new creative workforce is meant to be young, multiskilled, flexible, psychologically resilient, independent, single and unattached to a particular location. The article stresses the argument that these new realities of work and labour have to be recognised more extensively in up-to-date labour market strategies and cultural policy concepts. Western societies have to learn to cope better with these new general working and living conditions which affect a continuously increasing number of cultural workers/entrepreneurs—people who have to make their living from micro-entrepreneurialism. The article argues that cultural and employment policies should find innovative ways to accommodate the ambivalent efforts and needs of cultural workers/entrepreneurs (without capital). In conclusion, it will point out that the knowledge-based society has also given birth to historically new forms of employment not yet represented in the traditional canon of the political representation system (political parties, interest groups, etc.). Cultural policy-makers should take this into account in thinking about adequate social security schemes for their clientele, and labour policy-makers should be more aware of the major employment potential of the cultural sector on the one hand and, on the other, of the often precarious working and living conditions currently prevailing in it.     

Olei Hagardom: Between official and popular memory

This article examines the interaction between official memory and popular memory through the case study of Olei Hagardom – Jewish underground fighters executed by the British in Mandatory Palestine. Studies of collective memory usually maintain that the ruling elite, with its control of state resources, dominates collective memory formation. However, the case of Olei Hargardom demonstrates the potentially limited power of institutional commemoration and exclusion in a democratic society. David Ben-Gurion and his government's attempt to exclude these right-wing heroes from the national pantheon had limited impact. Menachem Begin's persistent, partisan political efforts to include them were only partially successful. Ultimately, Olei Hargardom became entrenched in Israeli collective memory as a result of apolitical literary works, popular culture, and the establishment of a site of memory by spontaneous, grassroots efforts.     

The role of the past in late medieval hidalgo historical writing and memory

ABSTRACT

This essay is structured around two themes: the writing of history and memory. On the one hand, it analyses the use of the past in Lope García de Salazar's Libro de las buenas andanças e fortunas (1471–5). His approach to history is imbued with nostalgia for a legendary past, and more specifically for a political arrangement between the Lord of Biscay and the lesser nobility (hidalgos) which ensured respect for their privileges. This is set in contrast to a second group of material, legal documentation relating to the town of Escalante in Cantabria. Historically under seigniorial control, the inhabitants created a collective memory that framed a past prior to the fourteenth century which was free of lords and feudal obligations.     

History,tradition, and memory among the Basques

This article explores the historical commemoration, the Alarde of the Spanish-Basque town of Hondarribia, re-enacted for almost 400 years. It is a social account of the past portrayed through a history of local militarism and a history of commemorative performance. Since 1996, controversy has divided local inhabitants concerning wider female-inclusion in the male-dominated event, separating the town into factions, traditionalists (asserting traditions remain the same) and feminists (advocating broader female involvement). Theoretical concerns include examining traditions and their gradual transformations over time, rather than as episodic change; that interpreting the past can be competitive over rights of belonging; that history may be influenced by different agencies of gender, kin ties, memory, politics, and social experience; that people do not purposefully ignore the passage of time but may be protecting communal harmony; that commemorative rites are more than embodied performances; and that history can be a multiple, contested, and lived experience.     

Transnational ways of seeing: sexual and national belonging in Hedwig and the Angry Inch

I argue that transnational ways of seeing help us apprehend the histories of globalization, immigration and imperialism that frame and make legible cultural productions. Focusing on John Cameron Mitchell's 2001 film Hedwig and the Angry Inch, which has been almost universally received as being about transsexuality, this essay argues that the film is equally about transnationality and specifically about how queer identifications and identities are produced in relation to the nation-state. Hedwig explores the limits of national belonging and the pleasures of US popular culture through the lens of sexual and gender identity, with the ambiguity of the Hedwig's body embodying confusion about legal, political and cultural citizenship. The film identifies and critiques the violences of heteronormative national belonging, yet by reading Hedwig alongside the political and legal histories that make its narrative legible, it becomes apparent that the film's popular reception frequently erases the transnational and imperial histories that undergird and produce sexual identities and identification. I argue that cultural practices do not simply reflect national or queer identifications but also produce them. The fissures between the cultural work of the film itself and of its circulation illustrate how despite the mutual imbrication of sexuality and nationality, transsexuality is sometimes more readily apprehended than is transnationality.     

Sites of memory in the Holy Land: the design of the British war cemeteries in Mandate Palestine

British war cemeteries of WW1 form a world embracing system of cemeteries, scattered over a wide range of sites and landscapes wherever Imperial soldiers died during the war. Although recent interest in memory and commemoration has made the British war cemeteries of the Great War a much-studied subject, the spatial dimension of this enormous undertaking remains somewhat out of focus. The geographical context, however, is an important factor in shaping the meanings for each cemetery. In each, the memory of the war intersects and interacts with the historical memory carried by the site. Nowhere is this more evident than in the cemeteries of the Palestine campaign, above all in Jerusalem. The paper follows the history of the design of war cemeteries of the Palestine campaign, and examines the ways the cemeteries and their design relate to their particular geographical context, and the impact this context may have on their interpretation     

The politics of memory: Commemorating the centenary of the First World War

This symposium examines how the centenary of the First World War has been marked in five countries: Australia, France, Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States. Given their distinctive national historical experiences and political cultures, the metanarratives of the war in these countries differ; as does the relationship between the state and sub-state actors in memory making. However, in each case the commemorations of the war have been shaped by a negotiation between the state and other agents of memory at the sub-state level. National memory has also been consciously projected into international relations, through carefully orchestrated anniversary ceremonies and performative memorial diplomacy. But, despite these transnational commemorative practices, the centenary of the war remains predominantly framed within local and national imaginings.

这次研讨会议论了一战百年在奥地利、法国、德国、英国、美国这五个国家是如何庆祝的。考虑到各国不同的历史经验以及政治文化,这些国家关于一战的元叙事各不相同,国家与次国家主体关系的记忆也是如此。不过,每个国家的战争纪念,都是国家与其他次国家层面主体协商的结果。通过精心策划的纪念仪式日以及表演性纪念外交,国家记忆被有意识地投射到了国际关系之中。除了这些跨国纪念活动,一战的记忆主要是在地方以及国家的想象框架内形成的。     

The diplomacy of extra-territorial heritage: the Kokoda Track,Papua New Guinea

The global interest in the memory of war in recent decades has brought challenges in managing and conserving extra-territorial war heritage: that is, sites of memory that have a greater significance for people outside the sovereign territory in which the sites physically reside. This article considers this issue in relation to the Kokoda Track in Papua New Guinea, a site of central importance in the Australian national memory of war. The successful conservation of the Track throws new light on the practice of heritage diplomacy. Working mostly outside the more commonly explored arena of global heritage governance, the Australian and New Guinean governments employed bilateral diplomacy to manage domestic stakeholder expectations, and thereby identified a convergence of interests and mutual gain by linking heritage protection with local development needs. They have also encouraged the construction of a narrative of the events of World War II that in some respects might be described as shared. Thus, heritage diplomacy is underpinned by a transnational consensus about the heritage’s significance, at least at the government level, which arguably divests the Kokoda Track of its exclusively ‘extra-territorial’ quality.     

Europe’s other? The Turks and shifting borders of memory

Abstract

Since the fifteenth century, the ‘Turks’ have represented the paradigmatic other of Europe. Even in times without violent conflict, the ‘Turks’ delimited the mental border of Europe towards the ‘Orient’ and served for identity-building in East Central Europe. In that region, the commemoration of the Turkish menace substantiated claims of being part of Europe over the last 200 years. Societies in peripheral regions could thereby redraw Europe’s frontiers in their favour. A comparison across Eastern European countries demonstrates how attempts at an inner homogenization through instrumentalization of an imagined external enemy contradict the plurality of interpretations of the past.     

From ‘flight and expulsion’ to migration: contextualizing German victims of forced migration

Abstract

The forced migration of twelve million Germans was central to German memory after 1945, and reflects fundamental changes in remembering the Second World War, that is, refocusing from German victims, such as expellees, to the victims of Germany in the Holocaust. Within this discourse, ‘flight and expulsion’ demonstrates Germany’s entangledness with her eastern neighbours and is turned into a European and transnational mnemonic discourse with the debates over a ‘Centre against Expulsions’ in the 2000s. This article studies ‘flight and expulsion’ between two mnemonic patterns, that is, the loss of the homeland against migration. After the collective imagination of a lost homeland in the east, the emerging Holocaust memory both marginalized ‘flight and expulsion’ in the late 1970s and introduced new patterns of commemoration. These patterns enabled a turn toward individual victimhood and the decontextualization of ‘flight and expulsion’ from the Second World War. The ‘Centre against Expulsions’ project demonstrates the coordination of the German example with other cases of forced migration and the claim for a universal commemoration of past expulsion and the condemnation of any future attempts. The case of Syrian civil-war refugees, however, reveals that such forms of decontextualization only in part transfer into humanitarian imperatives.