Mnemonic Solidarity Conference Poster_web (1).pdf

Mnemonic Solidarity-Global Interventions, 2021

This book introduces “mnemonic solidarity” as a scholarly and political program, situating it in the context of the wider project and publication series “Entangled Memories in the Global South”. Their programmatic approach arises from the observation that a global memory formation has emerged since the late twentieth century, which has been addressed in various ways by scholars under the rubrics of “cosmopolitan,” “multidirectional,” “traveling,” “prosthetic,” “transnational,” and “agonistic” memory. But the new field of memory studies remains Eurocentric and relatively insensitive to the double-edged character of globalized memory – the interplay between de-territorialization and re-territorialization. This open access book provides a concise sketch of the global memory formation since the 1990s. Memories of traumatic histories in different parts of the world, often articulated in the terms established by Holocaust memory, have become entangled, reconciled, contested, conflicted and negotiated across borders. As historical actors and events across time and space become connected in new ways, new grounds for contest and competition arise; claims to the past that appeared de-territorialized in the global memory formation become re-territorialized – deployed in the service of nationalist projects. This poses challenges to scholarship and practice: How can we ensure that shared or comparable memories of past injustice continue to be grounds for solidarity between different memory communities? In chapters focusing on Europe, East Asia and Africa, five scholars respond to these challenges from a range of disciplinary perspectives in the humanities.

Global-e: https://www.21global.ucsb.edu/global-e/january-2019/mnemonic-solidarity-global-memory-space, 2019

With the shift of globalization from imagination to memory, memories have become entangled beyond national borders. Global memory space has emerged to challenge the nation-state as the legitimate container of collective memories. Thus, national memories tend to produce the extraterritoriality of the remembrance by rendering a crisscross global accountability to the national experience, which opens the door to the mnemonic solidarity and democratization globally. However, globalization does not necessarily mean the de-territorialization of the collective memory. The re-territorialization of the collective memory remains salient. The global memory space has been strained by a tension between the de-territorialization of national memories and re-territorialization of the global memory. The special issue of the ‘mnemonic solidarity: colonialism, war, and genocide’ navigates that tension to find a possibility of mnemonic solidarity in the global memory space in the twentieth century. It consists of 5 essays: introduction plus four essays reckoning respectively with Africa, East Asia, Europe, and the Middle East.

Entangled Memories in the Global South, 2021

Lim and Rosenhaft introduce “mnemonic solidarity” as a scholarly and political program, situating it in the context of the wider project and publication series “Entangled Memories in the Global South.” Their programmatic approach arises from the observation that a global memory formation has emerged since the late twentieth century, involving interchanges of various kinds between national memory cultures and structured by the terms of Holocaust memory. This development and its political implications have been addressed in various ways by scholars under the rubrics of “cosmopolitan,” “multidirectional,” “traveling,” “prosthetic,” “transnational,” and “agonistic” memory, but the new field of memory studies remains Eurocentric and relatively insensitive to the double-edged character of globalized memory—the interplay between de-territorialization and re-territorialization. This volume aims to reset the agenda.

Critical Approaches to Cosmopolitan Education, 2021

Abstract This chapter takes up questions of how students in superdiverse contexts make sense of historical accounts articulated by survivor communities of mass atrocity, what tensions can arise between students’ critical structural analysis and their imaginatively engaged deep listening when studying contemporary world history, and the implications for antiracist and anticolonial education. This chapter specifically reports on the findings of one case study within a multi-site community-led participatory research project aimed at expanding the sources and pedagogical approaches used in the study of the 1994 Rwandan Genocide against the Tutsis in the context of a unique Canadian and World Studies course “Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity: Historical and Contemporary Implications”. The project focused on the implications of centring antiracism and anticolonial frameworks and introducing memory studies and methods of oral history in studying histories of mass violence from the perspectives of ‘survivor-historians’ (Rwigema, Karera, Nsabimana, Sharangabo, & Sollange Sauter, 2009; Rwigema, 2018). Analysis of this case study relies upon the collective knowledge creation of the larger project (Taylor, Rwigema, & Umwali, 2012, 2014; Taylor, Rwigema, Sollange & Kyte, 2017). Analysis of qualitative classroom data and samples of student learning points to several conclusions. Critically framed, oral counter-histories offer tremendous possibilities for critical and emotional literacies, moving from questions of What happened? to those of Why does it matter? To whom? For what social projects? (Llewellyn, 2015). They invite further questions: Which people’s memories are important to listen to and how is one’s access to them filtered through relations of power? How does the meaning of this event change as each generation re-members it differently through the lens of their historical consciousness? How is forgetting organized? What is at stake in remembering? How are collective identities defined and redefined through contemporary practices of remembering the past through oral history? Finally, what kinds of futures are we building through critical remembrance practices?

dipot.ulb.ac.be

Colonialism, that Loomba calls "the most complex and traumatic relationship in human history" (2005, 8), has left its mark on international relations, social relationships within nations, and the ideologies and imaginaries of virtually all the peoples of the world. Understanding colonialism and its consequences is therefore essential to comprehending the dynamics and conflicts of the contemporary world. This special focus was born out of a desire to bring social psychological studies on colonialism to broader attention.

2010

Colonialism, that Loomba calls "the most complex and traumatic relationship in human history" (2005, 8), has left its mark on international relations, social relationships within nations, and the ideologies and imaginaries of virtually all the peoples of the world. Understanding colonialism and its consequences is therefore essential to comprehending the dynamics and conflicts of the contemporary world. This special focus was born out of a desire to bring social psychological studies on colonialism to broader attention.

Oxford Handbook of Genocide Studies, 2010

This article explores the history of genocide by looking at collective memories, from the point of view of Western culture. Western culture is suffused with autobiographies, especially with traumatic life narratives about the legacies of abusive childhoods. For the individual victims of genocide, traumatic memories cannot be escaped; for societies, genocide has profound effects that are immediately felt and that people are exhorted never to forget. The discussion shows how genocide is bound up with memory, on an individual level of trauma and on a collective level in terms of the creation of stereotypes, prejudice, and post-genocide politics. Despite the risks of perpetuating old divisions or reopening unhealed wounds, grappling with memory remains essential in order to remind the victims that they are not the worthless or less than human beings that their tormentors have portrayed them as such.

Memory Studies, 2022

This special issue titled Mnemonic Wars: New Constellations has two objectives. First, it maps some of the current memory conflicts in different parts of the world, focusing on their topics and novel political, cultural and social constellations. Second, the issue problematizes how the different currents of revitalized national politics and globalization processes influence and sometimes even trigger memory wars. Who are the contemporary memory agents fostering confrontational memory politics? What tools, media and practices do they use to promote their interpretations of the past? How are these memory wars being played out internationally? In what ways do global developments, such as the spread of social media, the emergence of transnational memory politics or the establishment of transnational networks of memory activists, influence today's memory conflicts? Finally, how do these discursive struggles translate into real-life conflicts? In their introductory article, the guest editors discern between the older and more recent approaches to research on memory conflicts and set the conceptual agenda for the entire issue.

Research Cluster on Peace, Memory and Cultural Heritage Working Paper No 1

This working paper presents an analytical framework for assessing how memory politics impacts on the quality of peace in societies transitioning from conflict. The framework captures the inherent fluidity and friction of memory politics and can be used to develop a typology of memory regimes. The multidimensional framework is based on a constructivist epistemology that acknowledges the performative capacity of discourses, material manifestations, practices and agentive subjects. It is designed around four conceptual points of entry reflected in the acronym SANE: sites; agents narratives; and events. We study the interaction of sites, agents, narratives and events as 'mnemonic formations', i.e. a cluster that shapes the memory politics around a salient issue, phenomenon or event of the conflict. We illustrate this framework with references to mnemonic formations in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Cambodia, Cyprus, South Africa and Rwanda. The mnemonic formations referred to in this working paper are considered as diagnostic sites from which we can draw wider conclusions on how memory politics impacts on peacebuilding and transitional justice. Our ambition is to lay out a grid for a comparative analysis through which we can develop a typology of memory regimes and assess the impact of commemoration on the quality of peace, measured in terms of inclusivity, pluralism and human dignity.