Abstract
Normally, there are no special issues, devoted exclusively to one topic, in Time & Society. With this issue, however, we have made an exception. It is with great pleasure that we devote the entire present issue of this journal to the subject of memory, history and justice. We feel that both the importance of the subject matter as well as the quality of the articles collected by Klaus Neumann and Kate McGregor justify this move. In our view, this particular focus is overdue. As a ‘dimension’ of temporality, memory is arguably the most overlooked and underdeveloped in terms of its theory – and as a functional modality for an understanding of society. But there is undoubtedly much that we can learn and discover about ourselves, about our present society, and about the ‘making’ and the role of history from the study of (social) memory as an integral element of the study of time.
At its root, memory is, of course, deeply personal; and it is, as Henri Bergson argued, by its nature something fractured and discontinuous. But memory is also an inter-subjective form of experience that when documented and recorded and interpreted gives broader social meaning (of whatever value and truthfulness) to events and people, allowing individual experience to have wider significance – and therefore potential power. Recorded memories, in other words, allow for the (potentially infinitely variable) contextualization of events. Memory is thus deeply political, and fraught with the tensions between institutional powers who may seek to control the scope of what is to be remembered and those who see only denial or distortion of past events. The ongoing trauma and mistrust between Turks and Armenians that has been a result of the struggle for a ‘proper’ reckoning of what took place during the late phase of the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire in the first decades of the 20th century is only one example of what is still at stake in the reconstruction of historical ‘facts’.
Fractured and discontinuous memories continue to percolate up to the popular consciousness, often to challenge, or to act as much-needed corrective to, enduring official memories, or simply just to reinforce them. In our hyper-mediated age, the popular (global) consciousness may be shaped and re-shaped through the media of, say, television and the internet, where small past wars and injustices as well as world-transforming historical events are continually revisited. Moreover, historians such as Orlando Figes or Antony Beevor have peered through newly opened archives and obtained testimonies, or scoured the private diaries of many who lived through the major political events of the 20th century, such as the rise of the Soviet Union and the second world war. Their best-selling books take subjective memory to another level of understanding, thereby keeping certain histories alive and often bringing to us a fresh understanding of them.
However, beyond this mass consumption of memories, theory-building and debating the nature of what memory and history are and how they are constituted of temporal forces, remains the key task for scholars and activists who seek to bring new frameworks to new historical realities emanating from suppressed or forgotten or falsified memories. This vital process is what our contributors bring to this issue, which we hope will make some small contribution to what is a fundamental element of being able to understand who we are and the kind of world we inhabit.
Our grateful thanks go to the issue Editors, Klaus Neumann and Kate McGregor for their patience and their skill in putting together what we think is an outstanding collection.
There are two further points we would like to bring to the attention of our readers: First, over the years quite a lot of readers as well as authors have approached us with suggestions for a re-design of our front cover. Now, finally, beginning with this issue, we are proud to present our new cover design, which was developed by SAGE. We very much hope you will come to like it! Secondly, Time & Society is happy to co-present a workshop, together with RC 35 (Committee on Conceptual and Terminological Analysis) at the Second ISA Forum of Sociology in Buenos Aires, 01–04 August 2012. You will find it as the RC 35 Session titled ‘Time & Society’. We very much hope to see you there!