Abstract
Some of memory studies’ most prominent concepts – such as social, cultural, communicative or collective memory – are rather vague, mistakable and used in many different ways. Heuristically, the adaptability of such concepts to different disciplines can be inspiring; nevertheless, that there is a need for the development of common understandings in memory studies is hard to deny. Mathias Berek’s book on memory culture is an interesting attempt to contribute to a more solid theoretical foundation for large parts of memory studies, at least for its cultural and social branches. Berek’s intention is to provide a social constructionist theory of memory that, clearly founded in social-phenomenological thought (already expressed by the book’s title: Collective Memory and the Social Construction of Reality), can be linked with other approaches. Consequently, the book offers pure work on concepts and theory without recourse to its own empirical research, although it takes several examples from German discourse on history to illustrate its points.
It is not easy, however, to discern what exactly the book is about. The publisher’s information on the back cover is rather misleading. This book does not, as promised, combine Peter L. Berger’s and Thomas Luckmann’s constructionist sociology of knowledge with Alfred Schütz’s analyses of the life world. The former based their sociology of knowledge directly on the approach of Schütz; Berger and Luckmann linked their work in the most direct way by editing and co-authoring the book the late Schütz couldn’t finish, Strukturen der Lebenswelt, which serves Berek as his principal reference. Berek’s book also does not, as announced, systemize into a coherent theory findings from the neurosciences, literature, psychology, sociology and history. Rather, it integrates various aspects and concepts from these disciplines into its attempt to develop a social constructionist approach.
Among the book’s principal objectives is to show that memory culture can be understood as part of the constructionist sociology of knowledge. The book argues that, in The Social Construction of Reality (1966), Berger and Luckmann gave memory a systematic place without developing this in detail. Berek therefore tries to show systematically that constructions of the past are an integral part of the social construction of symbolic worlds of meaning (p. 25). His intention, in adding a chapter to Berger’s and Luckmann’s work, is to directly continue their theory.
At the same time, the book sets out to develop a theory of memory culture based on this tradition of theory. This second objective, converging in part with the first one, is directed to a contribution to the field of memory studies in general.
The book also devotes much space to reflections on the consequences of this approach for concepts frequently used in memory studies. It thus discusses concepts of social, communicative and cultural memory, false memories, and linkages of individual and collective memory. These reflections and discussions of concepts may be regarded as the book’s third objective.
Reading the book, neither does a clear preference for one of these three objectives emerge, nor do any of them seem fully accomplished. A full contribution to the theoretical tradition would have required, especially for readers unfamiliar with Berger and Luckmann’s work, a basic and explicit introduction into their sociology of knowledge and, particularly, a detailed account of the points where additional theorization of memory seems necessary. A sound presentation of a theory of memory culture would also have needed an explanation of the strengths of the Schütz, Berger and Luckmann tradition, and why this should form the starting point of the discussion. Measured by its claim to present a theory of memory culture, the book seems too much based on work on individual concepts and the discussion of them, and too little on linking these concepts into a genuinely theoretical web of concepts. This leaves the book’s discussion of the consequences for concepts frequently used in memory studies as its clearest and most accessible objective.
The book’s structure itself provides evidence of this. After the first chapter’s rich and broad introduction into problems of memory research and the chosen approach, the second chapter offers preliminary working definitions of key concepts (the distinction between Gedächtnis and Erinnerung; culture, memory culture and collective memory; communicative and cultural memory; politics). Consisting of over 100 pages, the third, central chapter focuses on memory in a systematic (perhaps schematic) way. It starts with a presentation of the emergence of memory from neuronal and psychological perspectives and then – using concepts introduced by Berger and Luckmann such as objectivation, typifying or sedimentation – discusses the intersubjective processes that build up a collective stock of knowledge. In a general sense, that stock of knowledge has to do with memory. However Berek makes an important qualification, proposing to regard memory culture as that part of the stock of knowledge that explicitly refers to situations and experiences of the past. This distinction between the broad concept of a general stock of knowledge – which, as in the case of speech, originates primarily from the past and thus gets remembered somehow – and a narrower definition of memory (Gedächtnis) as consisting only of that part of knowledge that relates to events in the past, is crucial to his argument. This narrower concept of memory constitutes what he regards as the genuine realm of the theory of memory culture his work tries to propose. In addition to memory in the sense of Gedächtnis (memory), memory in the sense of Erinnern (remembering) is the process of recollecting such events or experiences from the past (pp. 70–2).
Chapter 3 continues with subchapters on memory and the dimensions of time and space, the relations between common sense and theoretical worldviews, and a constructionist critique of distinctions between ‘true’ and ‘false’ memories. The latter argument, in my mind, misses the point that there are many everyday interactions and problems that require more or less ‘true’ or ‘authentic’ memories. Merely insisting on the constructedness of all memory, and preferring questions of the type ‘how memory is getting constructed’ (p. 118), ignores such practical functions of memory.
The third and final part of this long chapter focuses on general functions of memory such as its orientation of perception and action, its legitimation, its construction of the present as well as the past, the politics of memory and the relation between memory and forgetting.
The 15 pages of Chapter 4 are intended to give an overview on the variety of memory phenomena – of types of memory. However, it mainly presents three scales along which types of memory might be systematically ordered: complexity (e.g. of the different types of symbols involved); scale of groups bearing that memory (from dyadic groups to nations); approaches to power (Zugang zu Macht, with a distinction between minoritarian, subversive, revolutionary and affirmative memory culture).
There are two problems I see here. First, the reflection on power is much too simple; at the very least, a Weberian distinction between domination and power or a consideration of Foucault’s view of power relations would have provided more depth. The second point regards a more general problem, one that has to do with the book’s assumption of a close linkage between particular memory cultures and particular groups. As is stated in the fourth chapter and elsewhere in the book (p. 39; 180/181; 192), collective memory always has groups ‘bearing’ that memory (Trägergruppen). For Berek, such groups are contained within the nation, because beyond that level groups start being too complex to operate with one common memory culture. Thus, complex social organizations such as the European Union cannot develop a memory culture, according to Berek, because they include too many different memory cultures (p. 192). This argument misses the crucial point made by Berger and Luckmann, namely that objectified worlds of meaning may acquire a very high degree of complexity. Berek’s book does not take full account of this complexity in modern society, or of the plurality of these meaning worlds, and especially their partial autonomy, which allows incongruences between boundaries of social groups and objectified worlds of meaning. This problem is also reflected in Berek’s use of a concept of society that seems identical with that of the nation state. These shortcomings prevent any productive connection of his work with concepts of inter- or transnational memory, or with approaches such as John W. Meyer’s ‘world culture’ (which also draws closely on the Berger and Luckmann tradition). It would be interesting to discuss in detail whether these problems are linked with a somewhat substantialist approach to collective memory that emerges from the book’s attempt to provide a social constructionist theory of memory culture.
The book concludes with a summary of results regarding a theory of memory culture and consequences for concepts of memory. Such consequences relate especially to Aleida and Jan Assmann’s distinction between collective and communicative memory, which does not fully fit into the approach Berek proposes. He prefers to distinguish between individual and collective memory and does not adopt the Assmanns’ typology of memory on the basis of increase in time span. On the other hand, Berek does integrate other aspects such as content, form, diffusion and bearer of memories into his typology of memory.
This last point shows that, despite its problems, the book offers an interesting range of discussions of key concepts and theoretical aspects from the field of individual and collective memory. As such, it will inform and inspire a readership from different disciplines of memory studies.