Abstract
This is a very neatly prepared volume; 12 chapters divided into four parts—concepts, temporalities, functions, and contexts—provide a useful overview of how theoretical approaches in contemporary sociology conceive memory and forgetting. The editors specialize in German studies—Gerg Sebald is an expert on sociology of knowledge and Jatin Wagle on critical theory—which likely explains the German-oriented focus of the book, whose contributors tend to agree that—ironically, in view of Maurice Halbwachs’ posthumous reputation as one of the founding fathers of memory studies—sociology is a latecomer to the contemporary field. Taking into account “numerous concepts, which are already in use,” editors aim for their “integration through a compatible theoretical terrain” (p. 4). They do, however, refrain from attempting to provide the theory of memory, instead discussing elements of various theories and attempting to place them in a common sociological framework.
The volume explores this terrain by underscoring the crucial sociological question of how social order is possible (Leonhard, p. 109). The authors of consecutive chapters see remembering and forgetting as key processes for making of societies (Srubar, p. 18). Sedimented experiences understood as social memories “preform the perceptions and interpretations of the social and physical world, and thus constitute the much-invoked social prerequisites of every form of appropriation of the world” (Gudehus, p. 95). While forgetting is the main mechanism behind “the constitution and preservation of social order” (Dimbath and Wehling, p. 153), the remembrance “serves its legitimation” (Berek, p. 126). Moreover, the editors are particularly concerned with highlighting sociology as a discipline capable of grasping memory as a specific problem of modern societies with their varying temporal orientations and high degrees of specialization and diversifications (Sebald and Wagle, pp. 1–3).
More particularly, the chapters in the part on Concepts deal with lifeworld and trauma (Ilja Subar), interdependencies between individual remembering and collective memory (Gabriel Rosenthal), and temporal horizons of meaning and forms of the processes of generalizations (Gerd Sebald). They are all inspired by phenomenological sociology, social constructivism, and to some extent by system theory; and they all in one way or another deal with the dilemma of the individual versus the collective in sociological theory. Subar scrutinizes the selectivity of several meaning-producing mechanisms (subjective and corporal, practical world of working [Wirkwelt], semantics and media, and communicative interaction and discourse) and links them with trauma, that is, effective and repressive retention of meaning tied to the body. In this way, he depicts the lifeworld as a violent setting from which human beings have no escape. Rosenthal discusses collective memory and remembering as cultural practices from the double perspective of sociology of knowledge and biography theory. Her contribution promotes an empirically grounded approach to multi-generational transmission of the past and calls for precise reconstructions of which cultural practices are active/marginalized in a given historical and social context and of how this changes over time. Next, Sebald makes a plea for a shift of focus from the remembered content to the forms in which the past is processed, that is, to generalizations in which the past is stored for possible futures (generalizations taking place in bodies, minds, social situations, and social fields), as well as to the question of how these generalizations are processed during the construction of meaning. In general, Sebald sees generalizations and meanings as the primary notions by means of which memory studies might overcome the boundaries between individual and collective memory and between the so-called two cultures (collective vs collected) of the field (Olick, 1999).
The section on Temporalities relates to the earlier claim of editors that time is a key facet of modernity. It starts with Daniel Levy’s call for “bringing the future back in” to memory studies. Levy provides a critique of methodological nationalism in memory studies and calls for a cosmopolitan perspective as the “appropriate heuristic” for memory research in the global age. Whereas national futures rely on a teleological and rationalized orientation, cosmopolitan futures rely upon contingencies and unintended outcomes of risk societies. Christian Gudehus, in turn, examines the relevance of the past for present and future action. In particular, he engages with the concept of sedimented experience (which he regards as social memory per se) and unfolds a vast array of sociological theories and notions that might be helpful in understanding how sedimentation affects action and social order, including Bourdieu’s habitus, Elias’ figuration, mentality, identity, life scripts, mental models, and institutions. Finally, Jatin Wagle speaks of the non-simultaneous time of the postcolonial, seeing postcolonial temporalities not so much as fundamentally different from the homogeneous, linear time of Western modernity, but rather as parts of heterogeneous global modernity.
Nina Leonhard starts the part on Functions with an examination of the significance of memory for social integration and its limits. The author sees integration as the outcome of processes of social interaction in which claims on and exchanges of stocks of knowledge take place and defines memory as the ability to remember or to forget elements of knowledge. Under circumstances of change (such as political upheavals or migrations), some individuals and groups might not be able to connect their stocks of knowledge to public communication, an inability which might in turn challenge integration. Mathias Berek discusses the construction of social coherence which depends on selecting representations of the past that are capable of being remembered collectively. Insofar as “every society seems to seek recourse to collective memories in order to avoid crises of legitimation” (p. 129), he sees memorial politics as essential facet of every society. Oliver Dimbath and Peter Wehling close the part on Functions by focusing on forgetting, which they take to be the crucial mechanism behind the creation and preservation of the social order. The reproduction of social structure can take place only by excluding “unremarkable, inappropriate and ‘bothersome’ elements of knowledge” (p. 133). Their contribution provides a helpful overview of four theoretical perspectives that might be useful in advancing sociological understanding of forgetting, proposed by Maurice Halbwachs, Alfred Schütz, Pierre Bourdieu, and Niklas Luhmann, respectively.
In the final part, on Contexts, Elena Esposito, advances an argument that the key outcome of Web 2.0 communication is the “shift of focus from remembering to forgetting” (p. 160). To save is to forget: the Internet is a machine that retains “everything” and we tend to multiply data to such an extent that they become unmanageable. Such forgetting entails both disorder and loss of control. Kobi Kabalek deals with a more general question of what the context of memory is. He invokes a number of related terms—frame, milieu, setting, circumstance, background, and situation—and stresses that no single social context governs the social lives of individuals. Kabalek is therefore critical of container-like concepts, for example, “cultural memory,” “national memory,” or “public sphere,” that treat memory as fixed in space and calls for closer examinations of contexts in which memories are processed. Finally, Radhika Natarajan examines the biographical narratives of Sri Lankan Tamil refugee women in Germany. Natarajan uses Nora’s notion of sites of memory, as well as the notion of intersectionality from gender studies that invite us to analyze exclusions and oppressions resulting from various axes of inequality (e.g. race, class, gender, sexuality, disability, age). By careful examination of these narratives, the author has been able to reveal not only various kinds of oppression, but also moments of emancipation in the lives of her interviewees.
On the whole, the book should be of interest to sociologists and advanced students of other social sciences with some background in sociology. Although it is not novel in the main lines of its treatment of social order and modernity, and although the majority of the authors of the volume have published larger works on the subjects of their chapters, the collection helps to locate memory in sociological theory and to stimulate further theoretical inquiries. The individual contributions, even if not exhaustive and fully consistent with one another, are complementary. And, most importantly, by highlighting the role of memory and forgetting in the making of societies, the volume provides a convincing argument that sociology is relevant for memory studies. However, by the same token, the book reaches its limits. While understanding that sociology as a discipline needs to find its own (contemporary) route to the field of memory studies, it must be underlined that the way the majority of the contributions are written makes them largely unintelligible for readers without sociological background (with the notable exceptions of the chapters by Kabalek, Levy, Leonhard, and Natarjan). And we should also keep in mind that many contributions in recent memory studies have been provided by historians (not infrequently in a “stamp collecting” manner), who stand to benefit from clearer readings on social theories of memory. The field of memory studies has been recently struggling to overcome its multidisciplinarity, but the search of interdisciplinary or transdisciplinary approaches remains a mere postulate for now (Dutceac Segesten and Wüstenberg, 2016; Roediger and Wertsch, 2008). One of the reasons for this situation is overuse of intra-disciplinary jargon. In this respect, the book unfortunately proves the general rule rather than constituting an exception.