Collective remembering through the materiality and organization of war memorials

Abstract

This article investigates how material objects fit into societal discourses of remembering; the authors focus on how the spatial and material composition of objects can affect subjects, thus suggesting particular meanings and engagements. In particular, they investigate war memorials as cultural objects and products of social discourses, but emphasize that the memorials are not reducible to these discourses. Rather, the materials used in the creation of war memorials as well as their holistic organization constitute vital aspects of the memorial site and its ability to engage individuals and groups in socially desirable and personally meaningful processes. The authors analyze the Massachusetts Vietnam Veterans Memorial, taking into account the holistic material organization, hyper-generalization of signs, symbolic functions, and social suggestions that the memorial provides for visitors passing through. They argue that, partially through its very materiality, the memorial guides the direction of viewers' affective response, leading to particular interpretations and reactions.Much of human life revolves around objects that are, at first glance, intrinsically non-significant, but which become highly valued as a result of cultural processes (Valsiner, 2007). The process by which these meanings are created has long been studied in sociological, cultural, and theological domains, but psychology has only recently begun a serious study of how meaning is constructed on an individual level. Further, the relationship between material artifacts and human subjects has constituted a new and Journal of Material Culture 16(2) 193-213

Hanging tree as a place of memories – Encounters at a 1916 execution site

“…Material culture and embodied practices are thus crucial in producing and sustaining memories (Hallam and Hockey 2001;Seitsonen and Koskinen-Koivisto 2018). Beckstead et al (2011) have explicitly stated that even the selection of the materials used in the creation of memorials impart meaning and significance; the use of long-lasting materialshere iron and graniteforcefully conveys the social necessity of remembering. The restoration and reparation of these monuments is work done to prevent forgetting.…”

An emotional economy of mundane objects

“…On the other hand, material culture studies have drawn our attention to the entwinement of meanings, symbols, subjectivities, and relationships with the artifactual quality of objects (e.g. Aronczyk and Craig 2012;Beckstead et al 2011;Borgerson 2005Borgerson , 2009Craig 2011;Douny 2011;Kravets and Ö rge 2010;Miller 1987Miller , 1998Miller , 2005Smith 2009) and to the constitutive and co-emergent, rather than merely representative, nature of this entwinement. Familial socialization and interaction (e.g.…”

“…While the entwinement of iconization and signification with materialization (Bartmanski and Woodward 2013;Beckstead et al 2011;Craig 2011;Douny 2011;Kravets and Ö rge 2010) has been documented, we provide an additional dimension to materiality. Examining the entwinement of materiality with emotions, and exploring the structuring potentiality of the materiality-emotionality nexus also allows us to see how seemingly individual or interpersonal experiencessuch as listening to music, owning cassettes, gifting, selling, or dispossession may serve communal bonds by generating shared experiences and emotional orientations.…”

Spomenik: Resurrecting Voices in the Woods

“…In particular much research has explored contested sites of cultural heritage, 18 including particularly emotive settings such as holocaust memorials, 19 war memorials, 20 and roadside memorials. 21 However, this is often in the absence of any digital intervention at these sites.…”