Abstract
Memory is rarely considered an essential tool for sociological theorizing. Yet an understanding of memory as integral to the core of social life—indeed as the very tissue that binds collectivities together—has been inscribed in the sociological tradition from the beginning. Challenging the assumption that memory is a special interest—a sub-subfield within cultural sociology—this chapter argues for moving the concept of “collective memory” from the periphery of sociological theorizing to its core. In particular, current debates and conversations in the collective memory literature can advance two major projects in contemporary theory: (1) the effort to theorize the epoch in which we live, be it—for instance—“late,” “post,” “reflexive,” or “liquid” modern, and (2) the effort to define the meaning of “culture” and specify its role in larger social processes, a project that has simultaneously captivated and perplexed sociologists since the “cultural turn.” Accordingly, this chapter briefly traces the history of the “collective memory” concept and its revival in the 1980s, then draws from the field’s vibrant debates to reveal how the memory literature addresses broader theoretical questions.
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Notes
- 1.
Halbwachs was not the first to use the term “collective memory,” but he imbued it with “a theoretical weight previously unknown” and outlined a set of ideas that continue to be remarkably generative (Olick et al. 2011:16).
- 2.
Indeed, the classic sociological texts on memory have become core references in the interdisciplinary field of “memory studies,” which has—over the past few decades—brought together scholars from across the humanities and social sciences in a vigorous dialogue about the nature of memory and its place in human social life (for recent overviews, see Erll 2011; Olick et al. 2011). The field now has its own journals (e.g., Memory Studies), book series (e.g., Palgrave Macmillian’s “Memory Studies” and Stanford’s “Cultural Memory in the Present”), and conference circuit, among other markers of its institutionalization.
- 3.
For a discussion of other relevant scholarship in the years between Halbwachs’ death in 1945 and the revival of his work in the Anglophone world during the 1980s, see Olick et al. (2011:25–29).
- 4.
Schwartz (1982:396) argues that this “pattern conforms to Durkheim’s observations that organic solidarity does not negate the mechanical kind but rather presupposes it and is welded on to it.”
- 5.
Micro and macro approaches need not be seen in opposition, of course. For instance, Thomas DeGloma (2015:158, 161) examines how mnemonic agents deploy autobiographical narratives in their struggles to gain “mnemonic authority” within the public sphere—a particularly crucial strategy given the “new ethic of autobiographical storytelling” that influences public debates. “Collected” memories in Olick’s (1999a) sense are thus deployed to legitimate particular claims about “collective” memory.
- 6.
Putting Durkheim in conversation with more contemporary treatments of emotion, Schwartz argues that piacular rites impose “feeling rules” (Hochschild 1979) indicating “what sort of affect is to be displayed on a given occasion” (Schwartz 1991a:354); common emotion thus regenerates the group’s sense of solidarity.
- 7.
As Vinitzky-Seroussi and Teeger (2010) point out, however, silence can be a vehicle for memory and commemoration, not only for forgetting: for instance, the “moments of silence” that are now a ubiquitous part of commemorative rituals interrupt the ordinary flow of time to provide space for contemplating the past, facilitating memory rather than undermining it.
- 8.
In a related line of theorizing, Gary Alan Fine has examined “difficult” or “negative” reputations. While memories of evil and villainy (e.g., Ducharme and Fine 1995)—like the memories of greatness that Schwartz emphasizes—serve to reinforce a society’s moral boundaries (and thus underwrite consensus), memories of failure and incompetence are generated through “discursive rivalry,” tension and debate among competing “reputational entrepreneur[s]” (Fine 1996:1160, 1162). Fine’s approach thus expands upon the Durkheimian view of memory, emphasizing the “intense battle for control” that often takes place before a symbol comes to represent society for its members (ibid.:1160).
- 9.
Weber ([1919] 1946), of course, contrasted this ethic of responsibility with an ethic of conviction, which pursues “ultimate ends”—general ethical principles—without regard for their consequences.
- 10.
The psychological understanding of trauma is itself a metaphor. Originally, trauma referred to a physical wound, and indeed the term still carries that meaning—as in the “trauma center” of a hospital. The concept of cultural trauma, then, takes the metaphor one step further.
- 11.
As the anthropologist Paul Connerton (1989:102)—a seminal figure in the interdisciplinary field of memory studies—underscores, collective memory is not only inscribed through language, but also incorporated in the body: “the past,” he writes, “can be kept in mind by habitual memory sedimented in the body.” Expanding on this argument, Rafael Narvaez (2006:52, 56, 57) points out that the past is carried forward through “practices that work ‘below’ and beyond consciousness”—an idea with roots in Durkheim’s accounts of “effervescent—thus highly bodily—collective rituals” that lead to “the social construction of affect and the affective construction of social meaning.”
- 12.
- 13.
As Olick and his colleagues point out, Assmann’s interpretation understates the extent to which Halbwachs in fact acknowledged the power of collective representations in his discussion of historical memory, which he understood as “residues of events by virtue of which groups claim a continuous identity through time,” even if none of their members have autobiographical memories of these events (Olick et al. 2011:19).
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Simko, C. (2016). Forgetting to Remember: The Present Neglect and Future Prospects of Collective Memory in Sociological Theory. In: Abrutyn, S. (eds) Handbook of Contemporary Sociological Theory. Handbooks of Sociology and Social Research. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-32250-6_22
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