Abstract
The paper assumes a theoretical-empirical interface exists between top-down (structural concepts) and bottom-up (cognitive mechanisms and socio-cultural interactions) approaches to collective memory. Both deal with collaborative group accounts, material culture such as artefacts and representational re-descriptive technologies. Anthropology has shown how communal life was based on story telling, rituals, artefacts, routine practices constitutive of daily life representational re-descriptions and the reproduction of implicit and explicit emotional normative belief systems embedded in kinship and social network relations.
Résumé
L’article propose d’établir une interface théorique et empirique entre les approches de la mémoire collective de haut en bas (structurale) et de bas en haut (cognitive et interactionniste). L’une et l’autre, en effet, prennent acte des solidarités collectives et des cultures matérielles. Narrations historiques, rituels, objets, pratiques routinières constitutives des re-descriptions représentationnelles banales fondent ainsi la vie collective. Perdurent, inscrits dans la parenté et les réseaux de relations sociales, des systèmes implicites et explicites de croyances normatives et affectives. L’analyse est étendue jusqu’aux élaborations démographiques contemporaines.
Zusammenfassung
Der Artikel schlägt vor, eine theoretische und empirische Schnittstelle zwischen zwei Ansätze zur kollektiven Gedächtnis zu etablieren: eine, von oben nach unten (strukturell) und zweitens, von unten nach oben (kognitive Mechanismen und sozio-kulturellen Wechselwirkungen). Beide befassen sich mit kooperativen Gruppen, materielle Kultur, wie Artefakten und repräsentationalen Neubeschreibungen. Implizite und explizite Systeme der normativen und affektiven Überzeugungen fortbestehen, in Verwandtschaftsnetze und soziale Beziehungen eingeschrieben. Diese Analyse ist der zeitgenössischen demografischen Ausführungen erweitert.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Blau (Peter M.), 1960, “Structural Effects”, American Sociological Review, 25, p. 178–93.
Brian (Éric), Jaisson (Marie) et Mukherjee (S. Romi), 2011, “Introduction. Social Memory and Hypermodernity”, International Social Science Journal, 62, n. 203–204, p. 7–19.
Cicourel (Aaron V.), 2006, “Cognitive/affective Processes, social Interaction, and social Structure as representational Re-descriptions: their contrastive bandwidths and spatio-temporal foci”, Mind & Society, 5, n. 1, p. 39–70.
Cicourel (A. V.), 2012, “Processus cognitifs, interactions et structures sociales”, Revue de synthèse, 133, n. 1, p. 5–45.
D’Andrade (Roy G.), 1981, “The cultural Part of Cognition”, Cognitive Science, 5, 3, p. 179–95.
D’Andrade (R. G.), 1989, “Culturally based Reasoning”, in A. R. H. Gellatly, D. Rogers and J. A. Sloboda (eds.), Cognition and social worlds, Oxford, Oxford University Press, p. 132–43.
Durkheim (Émile), 1984, The Division of Labor in Society, New York, Free Press [De la Division du travail social. Paris, Alcan, 1893].
Feldman (Jerome), 2006, From Molecule to Metaphor: a neural theory of language, Cambridge, Bradford Books, MIT Press.
Halbwachs (Maurice), 1992, On Collective Memory, Lewis Coser (ed.), Chicago, University of Chicago Press.
Hanks (William F.), 1990, Referential Practices and lived Spaces among the Maya, Chicago, University of Chicago Press.
Helleringer (Stéphane), Duthé (Géraldine), Kanté (Almamy Malick), Andro (Armelle), Sokhna (Cheikh), Trape (Jean-François) and Pison (Gilles), 2013, “Misclassification of pregnancy-related deaths in adult mortality surveys: case study in Senegal”, Tropical Medicine and International Health, 18, 1, p. 27–34.
Hutchins (Edwin), 1991, “The social Organization of distributed Cognition”, in Lauren B. Resnick, John M. Levine et Stephanie D. Teasley (eds.), Perspectives on Socially Shared Cognition, Washington, D.C, American Psychological Association publ., p. 283–307.
Karmiloff-Smith (Anette), 1992, Beyond Modularity: a developmental Perspective on cognitive Science, Cambridge, MIT Press.
Olick (Jeffrey K.), Vinitzky-Seroussi (Vered) and Levy (Daniel), dir., 2011, The Collective Memory Reader, New York, Oxford University Press.
Schütz (Alfred), 1962, Collected papers, I. The Problem of social Reality, Maurice Natanson (ed.), The Hague, Martinus Nijhoff.
Roberts (John), 1964, “The self-Management of Cultures”, in Ward H. Goodenough (ed.), Explorations in cultural Anthropology, New York, McGraw-Hill, p. 433–54.
Tomasello (Michael), 1999, The cultural Origins of human Cognition, Cambridge, Harvard University Press.
Tomasello (Michael) and Call (Josep), 1997, Primate cognition, New York, Oxford University Press.
Vygotsky (Lev), 1978, Mind in Society. The development of higher psychological Processes, Michael Cole, Vera John-Steiner, Sylvia Scribner, and Ellen Souberman (eds.), Cambridge, Harvard University Press.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Aaron V. Cicourel, born in 1928, is Emeritus at the University of California, San Diego and at the University of California, San Francisco. He recently published “Origin and Demise of Socio-cultural Presentations of Self from Birth to Death etc.”, Sociology, February 2013, 47, 1, p. 51-73
About this article
Cite this article
Cicourel, A.V. Collective Memory, A Fusion of cognitive Mechanisms and cultural Processes. Rev synth 136, 309–328 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11873-014-0258-7
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11873-014-0258-7