Interpreting Contentious Memory: Countermemories and Social Conflicts over the Past (Interpretive Lenses in Sociology)

Memory is at the center of a diverse array of political conflicts, moral disputes, and power dynamics. This book illustrates how scholars use different interpretive lenses to study and explain profound conflicts rooted in the past. Addressing issues of racism, genocide, trauma, war, nationalism, colonial occupation, and more, it highlights how our interpretations of contentious memories are indispensable to our understandings of contemporary conflicts and identities. Featuring an international group of scholars, this book makes important contributions to social memory studies, but also shows how studying memory is vital to our understanding of enduring social problems that span the globe. Front Cover 1 Interpreting Contentious Memory: Countermemories and Social Conflicts over the Past 4 Copyright information 5 Table of Contents 6 Series Editors’ Preface: Interpretive Lenses in Sociology – On the Multidimensional Foundations of Meaning in Social Life 8 Notes on Contributors 13 Acknowledgments 18 1 Introduction: Interpreting Contentious Memories and Conflicts over the Past 20 The social foundations of contentious memory 24 Interpretive approaches to the contested past 30 Overview of the book 32 Notes 39 References 40 Part I Interpreting Memories in the Social Dynamics of Contention 46 2 On the Social Distribution of Soldiers’ Memories: Normalization, Trauma, and Morality 48 Introduction 48 The story behind the study 49 Close reflexive analysis: silences and managing emotions 51 The absence of moral considerations 54 Expanding the scope: between trauma and resilience 55 The normalized trauma 59 Silencing mechanisms 61 Discussion 62 Notes 64 References 64 3 Feminist Approaches to Studying Memory and Mass Atrocity 68 Past silences and contemporary inequalities 69 Integrating a feminist lens 71 Including women and stories of sexual and gender-based violence 72 Having participants guide research inquiries 73 The importance of trust 75 Analyzing silences 76 Emotional labor 78 Conclusion 80 Notes 80 References 81 4 Mobilizing Memories: Remembrance as a Social Movement Tool in the Vieques Anti-Military Movement (1999–2004) 88 Narratives for mobilization 89 The Vieques Movement 90 ¡Ni una bomba más!: a narrative of change and challenge 92 Analyzing remembrance of the military presence 93 The expropriations: beginning of new realities 94 Soldiers versus civilians: the tangible presence 96 The bombing: a living trauma 99 Conclusion 103 Notes 104 Acknowledgments 104 References 105 5 The Ballot of Donald and Hillary: Hateful Memories of Celebrity Leaders 108 The great Trumpian hatred 114 The predicate: Donald Trump as master of greed 116 The Donald and Kenya: a boomerang effect 119 It takes a village to hate Hillary 120 Coda 124 References 126 Part II Racism, Exclusion, and Mnemonic Conflict 130 6 Building a Case for Citizenship: Countermemory Work among Deported Veterans 132 How veterans get deported 133 Methods 135 Constructing the banished veteran 136 Mnemonic tensions 141 The interpretative process 145 Conclusion 148 Notes 149 References 150 7 Commemorations as Transformative Events: Collective Memory, Temporality, and Social Change 153 Conceptualizing commemorations as events 155 Studying commemorations as events: a methodological approach 157 Counterfactual analysis 158 Systematic comparison 160 Interactional dynamics and commemorative outcomes 162 Conclusion 165 References 167 8 Contentious Pasts, Contentious Futures: Race, Memory, and Politics in Montgomery’s Legacy Museum 173 Contentious memory and memorial museums 174 Race and memory in US museums 176 The Legacy Museum 179 “Reshaping the national conversation”9 185 Conclusion 187 Notes 188 References 189 Part III Genocide, Memory, and the Historicizing of Trauma 194 9 Remembrance and Historicization: Transformation of Individual and Collective Memory Processes in the Federal Republic of Germany 196 Introduction 196 The culture of commemoration in the Federal Republic of Germany 198 Individual and social representation of traumatic memories 202 A society of perpetrators: transgenerational identification processes in postwar Germany 203 The importance of family memory for the third and fourth generation 206 Remembering crime and the negative memory 207 Negative memory and German identity after the Holocaust 210 Conclusion 212 References 213 10 Enlisting Lived Memory: From Traumatic Silence to Authentic Witnessing 216 Epistemological frames of Holocaust memory 217 Holocaust descendant memory 219 Constituting Israeli descendant identity, memory and testimonial voice 220 Personal interpretive lenses: three analytical and moral turns 222 My first salvage mission at a support group for Holocaust descendants 222 Self-reflexive commentary 223 The third trajectory – third generation memory work in the public sphere 228 Discussion 231 References 233 11 Changing Memories of the Shoah in Post-Communist Countries: New Memories and Conflicts 236 Changing collective memories and the mnemonic battle 237 The Great Patriotic War: an imposed and dominant Stalinist interpretation of the 20th century 238 Competing memories: victims in the West and the East – who suffered more? 240 Who is the victim of what? Can a victim also be a perpetrator? 241 Polish nationalism and the destabilization of memory: “down with the pedagogy of shame” 242 Russia versus Poland about Katyn, Hungary 1956 and Czechia 1968: the struggle for freedom 243 One or diverging visions of history? Trouble in and with the museum 244 Earlier debates: history and national pride 245 The Baltic answer to Soviet oppression: nationalism ignoring the fate of the Russian population 247 The politics of collaboration and pride: Hungary 248 A museum in Sobibor 249 Can we remember together? 251 Notes 251 Acknowledgments 252 References 252 12 How Difficult Pasts Complicate the Present: Comparative Analysis of the Genocides in Western Armenia and Rwanda 255 Introduction 255 Re-embedding collective violence into modernity 257 Concept (genocide) 258 Agency (social actors) 259 Narration (context) 260 Part I: Difficult conceptual formation – ambiguities within the phenomenon of genocide 261 Intersection of time and power 261 Intersection of theory and praxis 262 Part II: Difficult social actor negotiation – diverging standpoints in practice 263 Variable experience 264 Variable knowledge 264 Part III: Difficult contextualization – (re)narrating genocide through subversion 265 Colonization 266 Nation-state formation 267 Internal polarization to genocide 268 Post-genocidal (re)narration 269 Post-genocidal Ottoman Empire and Turkish Republic (1923–present) 270 Post-genocidal Rwanda (1995–present) 270 Conclusion: Collective memory and contentious meaning-making 271 Notes 272 References 273 13 Conclusion: Memory and the Social Dynamics of Conflict and Contention: Interpretive Lenses for New Cases and Controversies 277 References 283 Index 285