Studying memorial practice offers a revealing vantage point into changes in attitudes towards the past and with observers referring to ‘memorial mania’ it is an opportune moment to do so. Two main lines of questioning regarding contemporary memorial practices are addressed here. The first looks at memorial functions and intentions. The second examines some of their social and political impacts. The final part of the article analyses some of the consequences of these impacts for citizenship: notions of victimhood and silencing. The main case study is the evolution of memorial practice in Spain since the Civil War (1936–39) this is set off against examples from other places. The conclusion that emerges is that predominant memorial practices are far more despotic than democratic in their injunction to recall a specific narrative of events and trying to steer a paradigm shift towards democratic memorial practices raises questions about civic rights and duties towards the past.
T he concern of this volume is the web of meanings and connotations associated with particular places as a result of wars, conflicts, and their aftermaths. 1 It is about how cultural heritage is both affected and generated by conflict, and how such heritage is subsequently interpreted, responded to, and used. The chapters brought together here arose from a large collaborative research project, funded by the European Union, that explored the uses of cultural heritage in post-conflict reconstruction processes in five countries: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cyprus, France, Germany, and Spain, with case studies added from Denmark and Serbia. The authors who together explored the varied facets of these processes brought with them a wide range of academic backgrounds, including archaeology, environmental psychology, geography, history, international relations, politics, and social anthropology; and all perspectives were needed as these are complex and intractable processes which affect individuals, generations, and policies. Together we explored different aspects of the historical processes and sought suitable methods for investigating dramatic and often still traumatic parts of the European cultural space. One major outcome is the detailed account of a number of specific places as presented in this volume and in the YouTube videos (http://www.youtube.com/user/CRICResearchProject) that accompany it. Through these two sources the means by which places are rethought and remade during post-conflict phases, including reconstruction, are considered and analysed. In particular, the volume demonstrates that places are not just 'the heritage of war' but actively participate in the recovery and remaking of communities.
Today in heritage studies memory looms larger than ever, there are memory parks, memory politics, and memory wars, there is discussion of 'dissonant', 'dark', and 'difficult' heritage linked to memories of traumatic past events. But what to we mean when we use the word 'memory' in the field of heritage? How is the divide between its social and individual realms bridged? This article theorizes the intimate relationship between heritage and memory by focusing on three areas. First, it maps out the vocabulary that has emerged from the heritage-memory dyad including how notions of collective memory and lieux de mémoire have been used, and occasionally misused, as well as the metaphors employed in the process. Second, the emergence of memory studies is considered, providing a brief overview of its foundations as well as assessing how it differs from, overlaps with, and contributes to heritage research. A third section offers a brief review of recent developments in cognitive psychology, neuroscience, and evolutionary biology relating to memory and how this might inform heritage studies. The concluding discussion provides a synthesis of the theoretical and empirical contribution of memory research to furthering out understanding of cultural heritage and proposes directions for future work on the area of confluence between the two.
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