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The Construction of the Relation Between National Past and present in the Appropriation of Historical Master Narratives

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Abstract

Master narratives about national history have been recognized as powerful cultural tools, influencing both historical understanding and national identity construction. For example, by the work of James Wertsch and studies on national history representation from a sociocultural point of view. However, the appropriation of these narratives needs to be considered in more detail for a clearer picture of how the nation is imagined and how this representation could change. In this paper a contribution is made by analyzing how the relation between past and present is constructed in master narrative representation, based on interviews with high school students narrating national history and presidential discourse commemorating it. It is proposed that the relation between past and present is constructed in three ways: past and present are identified; the past is idealized and their relation is teleologically constructed. By looking at how past and present are related in representations of the national past, the functioning of national historical myths as cultural tool becomes more clear. This contributes to clarifying how the master narrative constrains historical understanding and how it might enable national identification processes.

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Notes

  1. Commemoration of the 203rd anniversary of the May Revolution: Words from the President of the Nation (25-05-2013). See http://www.casarosada.gov.ar/discursos/26500-conmemoracion-del-203d-aniversario-de-la-revolucion-de-mayo-palabras-de-la-presidenta-de-la-nacion. Accessed on 19-01-2015.

  2. President Obama’s second inaugural address (Transcript). Washington Post, January 21, 2013; http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/president-obamas-second-inaugural-address-transcript/2013/01/21/f148d234-63d6-11e2-85f5-a8a9228e55e7_story.html. Accessed on 19-01-2015.

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Acknowledgments

We thank José Antonio Castorina and César López for their contributions to the realization of this paper.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales (FLACSO), Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires, Argentina

    Floor van Alphen & Mario Carretero

  2. Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Madrid, Spain

    Mario Carretero

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  1. Floor van Alphen
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  2. Mario Carretero
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Correspondence to Floor van Alphen.

Additional information

This paper was written with the support of Project PICT 2012-1594 (ANPCYT - National Research Agency, Argentina) and Project EDU-2013-42531 (DGICYT - Dirección General de Investigación Científica y Técnica, Spain), both of them coordinated by the second author. The first author receives a scholarship from CONICET (Consejo Nacional de InvestigacionesCientíficas y Técnicas) Argentina. We would like to express our gratitude for that support.

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van Alphen, F., Carretero, M. The Construction of the Relation Between National Past and present in the Appropriation of Historical Master Narratives. Integr. psych. behav. 49, 512–530 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12124-015-9302-x

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