Memory Studies

This article analyses user-generated YouTube cut and mix videos of irregular migration as producing communicative memory of those who have suffered at Europe’s external borders. Visual and textual analyses examine a neglected perspective on the study of media representations of migration by examining a particular practice through which people engage with news images and participate in (re)construction of collective memory in relation to irregular migration. The analysis shows that while hegemonic Eurocentric imagery prevails also in the vernacular amateur productions, re-mixing different cultural productions nevertheless complicates the representation of irregular migration and affords alternative positions. The article examines an emerging area in memory studies: practices of vernacular commemoration and its convergence with more institutionalized and professional media and memory practices. The videos are communicative reactions to emotionally disturbing news images of suffering – the public’s re-articulations of migration and migration control, which nevertheless are constrained into the existing mainstream media framings and entertainment economies. This type of performative citizenship is crucial for social equality, particularly since non-performance of memory in relation to contemporary migration tragedies has dominated European public spheres.

This article focuses on Sarajevo’s memoryscape to investigate the ambiguous nature of artefacts of commemoration. Suggesting that memorials impact the ways in which people relate to the past and future, the article suggests that they represent important platforms on which different versions of peace and social justice are implicitly narrated and discussed. Depending on the artist/designer, the location, the shape, the audience and the surrounding socio-political discourses, memorials inspire and transform stories of war and peace. The controversies around the Sarajevo roses or monuments dedicated to the international community in Sarajevo mirror controversial societal debates around the nature and politics of peace(building). Conflict and contestation can thus be read through closer investigation of the maps of meaning underpinning the commemoration of certain events. Due to their ambiguous nature, monuments can be used as a platform for the constant transformation of discourses of peace into conflict, and vice versa.

In the aftermath of the 1994 genocide, the government of Rwanda—much like other transitional regimes around the world—has prioritized reconciliation initiatives that educate civilians with a highly politicized understanding of the conflict and encourage them to speak about the conflict and its aftermath in a manner that reinforces the legitimacy of the current government. However, individual survivors, bystanders, ex-combatants, and/or perpetrators of the genocide find various subtle ways to reinforce, resist, or complicate the current official history. This article analyzes a series of “iconic stories” that are repeated by Rwandans in different settings due to their historical and personal resonance for what they can tell us about the ethnic and political tensions that often continue to divide Rwandans and the overall challenges associated with everyday life since the genocide. Yet, engaging with these iconic stories places the researcher in a difficult position where the democratizing potential of oral history is potentially undermined. This article argues that even while qualitative researchers have an obligation to listen deeply to their informants, their moral and professional obligations to avoid reproducing narratives that promote potentially reprehensible agendas—for example, genocide denial or the legitimation of authoritarianism—make contextualizing their participants’ narratives in relation to the personal, historical, and political climate in which they are being produced essential.

How a memorial impacts public memory depends not just on its symbolic appeals but also on how it gains the attention of visitors and how those appeals convert visitors into engaged participants. Although numerous studies have explored visitors’ performances at sites of memory, this scholarship has largely overlooked what we call “the accidental tourist,” the would-be visitor who had not planned to visit a site of memory but ended up doing so because of the site’s proximity to another existing attraction or daily route. Building on research into the performances of memory at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt, we expand inquiry into the way memorials attract and engage visitors by studying two temporary memorials to the cost of the Iraq War. We demonstrate how these memorials gain attention and prompt the engagement of “accidental tourists” through temporal and spatial tactics as well as both overt and subtle cues for visitors to interact with the site, organizers, and other visitors.

In 2004, the Smithsonian debuted “The Price of Freedom: Americans at War,” a permanent exhibition at the National Museum of American History in Washington DC. The exhibit occasioned strong criticism for its privatization of public memory and glorification of militarism. What has gone unexamined, however, is the curious absence of the 1801–1805 War with Tripoli from the exhibit. This war has long been invoked as an important lesson in US exceptionalism. The assault and short occupation of the coastal town of Derna by US-led forces in 1805 holds particular significance and commemorations of the battle during the twentieth century were important in the formation of attitudes that informed US approaches to empire before, during, and after the Cold War.

We seek to engage in this article the current debate in memory studies regarding the definition and nature of the phenomenon of collective memory. Using the controversy over Dow Chemical Corporation’s sponsorship of the London Olympic stadium in 2012 as an example, we theorize memory as inherently logical—that is, as necessary to the maintenance of the overarching logics that govern the political and economic forms of a given society. We suggest that physical memory, or memory manifested in material, spatial objects such as architecture, plays an important role in both inciting remembrance and encouraging forgetfulness. We also make a case for distinguishing between three facets of memory: memory as a collective phenomenon, memory as an individual phenomenon, and the interface between the two where shifts in the processes of remembering and forgetting are made possible. In making this case, we synthesize theories of collective memory with a theory of political critique.

Most parents sing to their children. Yet, little is known regarding how early musical experiences are retained later in life. This study is a first attempt to fill this gap in the literature. Based on the stratified sample, we asked 973 adults about their first memories of a song or melody. The results revealed that adults’ earliest memories of a song or melody generally were predated by memories for other events; thus, the music memories were not the very earliest memories. The earliest memories for musical experiences were rated as typical, fragmented, and positive. Women reported earlier music memories than men. Current age had no impact on the age of the earliest music memories, but older respondents rated their memories as more vivid. The reported parental communication quality during childhood was reliably related to the age and characteristics of the earliest music memories.