Memory, Work and Autonomy

Abstract

Remembrance implies work. It requires bodies and objects moving, performing and interacting to achieve a memorial composition. Participants in remembrance practices undertake a material and immaterial work of weaving their emergent experiences as part of the overall composition of the event. A material management of space, objects and bodies structures experiences of participation. The organisers of remembrance practices, memory choreographers, are responsible for designing and assembling these infrastructures of experience. In this chapter I introduce three cases of memory work that emerged after the London bombings. Each case features extracts of interview data to demonstrate the different ways in which people described their experiences of remembrance. The first case considers a series of memorial events that together compose an ‘official’ division of memory work. These include the initial remembrance service, which took place in St Paul’s Cathedral during November 2005, and the first-year anniversary in the same venue. The data extracts feature participants managing their subjectivity in relation to a specific event through conversational remembering. With this we gain a clearer view of what constitutes a problematic commemoration noting a particular emphasis on the material management of remembrance.