Memory and migration: research

Abstract

The “cultural turn” of the 1980s led to a shift within history and other related disciplines. New methodological and theoretical paradigms consolidated this linguistically inspired turn, which, among other objectives, aims to deconstruct the master‐narratives in historiography. Memory studies is one of the products which spun off the turn. “Individual,” “communicative,” “collective,” “social,” “public,” and “private” memories have been vividly and broadly debated in the past twenty years. The purpose of this article is to outline how the memory paradigm has been received in migration research. The focus lies on the following questions: How do migrants and their descendants construct memories of migration, settlement, and “integration”? What experiences have been forgotten? How do nations remember (or in some cases forget) and commemorate their migrant histories? How do individuals and groups, who are mobile, carry or challenge national master‐narratives? What sources have researchers relied on to unwind the strands of memory? And what theoretical frameworks were applied? Memory and migration in this article are discussed within the time frame of the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries.