‘We’re equal to the Jews who were destroyed. [. . .] Compensate us, too’. An affective (un)remembering of Germany’s colonial past?

Rausch, Sahra

doi:10.1177/17506980211044083

Cited by 4 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 31 publications

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“…Sometimes, this competition becomes so heated that the term "memory wars" is used (Stone, 2012); sometimes, memory laws are introduced to keep order (Balavusau and Gliszczyńska-Grabias, 2017). At the same time, the struggles for recognition often lead to instances in which groups of victims that are less prominent in public memory refer to those more prominent, especially to the Jewish victims of the Holocaust, in order to make their desires more tangible and add weight to their cause (Rausch, 2022). This often happens less in an attempt to belittle the experiences of the victims of other atrocities but more as a result of the narrative order that credits some and ignores many other histories of violence and leaves the ones less heard with hardly any other option than the turn to comparison (Brusius, 2021;Samudzi, 2021).…”

Section: The Impossibility Of Collective Memory In a Post-migrant Soc...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Why collective memory can never be pluriversal: A case for contradiction and abolitionist thinking in memory studies

Antweiler

2023

Memory Studies

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Bringing together memory studies with the emerging field of contradiction studies, in this article, I suggest the need for an alternative way of thinking about collective memory by juxtaposing the ideal of wholeness that necessarily underlies any group’s identity with that of the inevitable contradiction of the plurivers. I discuss the power of the Western narrative order in regard to the Haitian Revolution and examples of mnemonic disharmony in contemporary Germany and seek to illuminate the epistemic violence constitutive of this narrative order. The article therefore interrogates memory study’s epistemological foundation and the practices in which these underpinnings result. The aim is to highlight the potential of contradiction in an attempt to pluriversify responses to the past as well as future visions for the worlds we live in. Special attention is paid to the question of what it is we hope for when attempting to (scholarly) contribute to making collective memory more inclusive, and where the limitations of this might lie. The purpose of my contribution, then, is to explore the tacit imperative of harmony that often remains unchallenged in memory studies, and to propose a shift in focus, from the ways in which memory might help us understand (e.g., current clashes of identities), toward a research agenda that is considerate of its own entanglements with power, yet, at the same time, lives up to its potential to contribute to transformation.

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Section: The Impossibility Of Collective Memory In a Post-migrant Soc...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Why collective memory can never be pluriversal: A case for contradiction and abolitionist thinking in memory studies

Antweiler

2023

Memory Studies

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“…Although there is an inherent tension between the 'sacred' and the 'profane' in any collective memory (Olick, 2007a: 12), 'frames of remembrance' can carefully excise those aspects of the past that threaten its usability for the group. Problematic events and/or actors can be 'blanked out' and 'dis-memorised' in collective memory via deflecting attention to more favourable events and actors (Rausch, 2022). What emerges is a 'victimological memory' (Lemarchand, 2006) premised on the collective 'remembering' of the wrongs committed against the in-group and the concomitant collective 'forgetting' of wrongs committed by the in-group.…”

Section: Collective Memory and Conflict Narrativesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A ‘usable’ past, though, is contingent on ‘frames of remembrance’ (Irwin-Zarecka, 1994: 5) successfully establishing a limited range of permissible meanings for the past. While this can be most simplistically achieved through initially selecting certain events and actors to ‘remember’ and others to ‘forget’ (Hyun-Lim, 2016; Irwin-Zarecka, 1994; Rausch, 2022), environmental change brought on by societal movement out of conflict can see ‘forgotten’ memories being rearticulated rather than silenced (Passerini, 2003: 238). The re-emergence of problematic figures and/or events to complexify dominant narratives has led transitional justice (TJ) literature to take a recent ‘spectral turn’.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Naming and framing victims: Identity, ‘usable’ victimhood, and the spectral turn in transitional justice

Hearty

2023

International Review of Victimology

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Drawing from the literature on victimology, memory studies, and transitional justice, this article critically examines how representations of victimhood in post-conflict memory activism are rooted in contemporaneous claims-making. Using the collective remembrance of the events of August 1969 in Belfast as an empirical case study, it argues that memory activism centres on ‘usable’ victims whose victimhood can be seamlessly mapped onto preferred interpretations of the past in furtherance of post-conflict claims-making. Acknowledging the recent ‘spectral turn’ in transitional justice, the article explores how selective remembering and forgetting and the instrumentalization of selected identities through memory activism can transform otherwise problematic spectral figures into ‘usable’ victims. Once they have become ‘usable’, these victims become embedded in grassroots memory activism because they speak to claims-making over post-conflict truth and justice, the causes and consequences of past violence, and the post-conflict treatment of certain constituencies.

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“…Since Namibian independence in 1990, marginalized groups and individuals-especially members of the OvaHerero and Nama-have increasingly drawn on overlooked or previously suppressed and silenced memories. In part, these memories have been marshaled for the purpose of seeking official recognition and restitution for colonial crimes and genocide (see, for example, Kössler, 2015b;Melber and Platt, 2022;Rausch, 2022). The historian Memory Biwa reminds her readers that alternative sensorial memory practices have been enacted by Namibian societies well before independence.…”

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confidence: 99%

‘Practices of self’: Embodied memory work, performance art, and intersectional activism in Namibia

Brandt¹

2023

Memory Studies

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Cultural commemoration in the form of embodied memory was practiced in Namibia long before German colonial occupation in the 1880s and the War of Independence against South Africa from 1966 to 1989. In recent years, Namibian artists have been offering alternative forms of embodied memory transmission related to these histories. I argue that much of this work is inextricably linked to a new wave of decolonial activism in the country. These practices highlight questions related to history and memory and are a counterpoint to state-sanctioned memorialization. Some of the recurrent themes are efforts to work through traumatic legacies connected to German colonialism and apartheid, but also to intersectional violence tied to contemporary patriarchy and identity politics. In these settings, queer and feminist methodologies provide a departure point for this embodied memory work in an attempt to go beyond colonial and tribal legacies and nationalized identity politics.

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‘We’re equal to the Jews who were destroyed. [. . .] Compensate us, too’. An affective (un)remembering of Germany’s colonial past?

Cited by 4 publications

References 31 publications

Why collective memory can never be pluriversal: A case for contradiction and abolitionist thinking in memory studies

Why collective memory can never be pluriversal: A case for contradiction and abolitionist thinking in memory studies

Naming and framing victims: Identity, ‘usable’ victimhood, and the spectral turn in transitional justice

‘Practices of self’: Embodied memory work, performance art, and intersectional activism in Namibia

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