Memory and Social Movements in Modern and Contemporary History: Remembering Past Struggles and Resourcing Protest (Palgrave Studies in the History of Social Movements)

Reflecting the growing interest of historians in memory studies, this edited collection examines the relationship between memory and global social movements from 1848 to the present. For a long time, there has been little attempt by historians to consider memory and social activism in an integrated, systematic, and comparative way. However, in recent years, scholars have demonstrated that social movements rely on collective memories to assert claims, mobilize supporters, and legitimize their political visions, while also helping to further shape collective memories. This book delves into the synergies between memory studies and social movements, exploring how social movements have been constructing and creating memories of their own activity, how specific landscapes of memory have influenced social movements, and how activists have used memory as a cultural resource to further their own goals and ambitions. The case studies presented cover a range of different types of political activism, including the fights for workers’, gay, feminist, and pacifist rights, as well as ecological, urban, and far-right movements across the globe, portraying the diverse interrelations that exist between social movements and collective memory. Preface Contents Notes on Contributors List of Figures 1 Introduction: Memory Studies Meets Social Movement Studies 2 Framing the ‘Collective Memory’: The Politics of Mobilisations Against Hydropower Projects in Maharashtra, India (1980–2004) Introduction Conceptual Framework Contestations Around Water: The Social Context The Movement of Dam Evictees Practices, Form, and Content of the ‘Collective Memory Hybrid’ Frame The Politics of ‘Collective Memory’ and Its Selective Deployment Conclusion 3 Seeds as a Site for Humanistic Inquiry: Mapping Memory and Movement Through the “Sovereign Forest” Socially Engaged and Artistically Motivated Practices The Sovereign Forest: Archiving the Resistance Natabar Sarangi and Seed as a Heritage Site Seed as a Site for Resistance 4 Constructing the History of Working-Class Neighbourhoods: Communicative and Cognitive Reference to the Past in Conflicts Over Urban Redevelopment in West-German Cities in the 1970s and 1980s Confronting the Paradigm of Modernism Constructing Histories Collecting Evidence Circulating Knowledge Conclusions 5 Memory of Serfdom and the Peasant Rebellion in Lesko Powiat Plebeian Public Sphere? Identity and the Plebeian Public Sphere Serfdom and Memory The Memory of Serfdom as a Form of Thought Peasant Rebellion in Lesko Poviat Organisation Forms of the Peasant Mobilisation Peasant Mobilisation as Social Movement? Conclusion 6 Revolutionary Memory and the Genesis of the State: A Failed “Dress Rehearsal” and Changed Scripts in Polish Socialist Movements 1905–1920 The Socialist Memory Memory in the Movement Polish Revolutions Revolutionary Remembrance Revolutionary Confrontation from the Spirit of Disappointment The Power of Memory 7 Martyrs of the Labour Movement? Commemoration of Protest Casualties in Switzerland Martyrdom and (Non)Violence in Swiss Memorial Culture Political Violence in the Modern Swiss Confederation Memorialisation of Strike and Protest Casualties Conclusion 8 Negotiations Over the Past: 2009’s General Strike in the French Caribbean and the Colonial Past French Caribbean Colonial and Postcolonial History Competing Narratives Evoked During the Strike: Pointing at Colonial Continuities—The Trade Unions Government Politicians Békés The Media Conclusion 9 Mind the Gap: Gay Activism and the Remembrance of Gay Victims at the Dachau Memorial Site Introduction Precarious Memory—Struggle for a Memorial Site in Dachau The International Monument—Solidarity and Exclusion Recognizability, Grievability and the Precarity of Life—Judith Butler Struggle for Recognition and Memory—Gay Activism The Pink Triangle—From Persecution to Empowerment Memory Work: Providing Historical Knowledge Confrontation and Normative Change Conclusion 10 Imoinda in Berlin: Feminists and the Cultural Memory of Slavery After 1848 The Cultural Memory of Antislavery Rochester: The “Law of Progress” Paris: Women’s Rights as Human Rights Berlin: Women’s Disillusionment Reflection 11 Remembering Tolstoyans: The Soviet/Russian Independent Peace Movement, in Search of a Russian Historical Tradition of Pacifism Introduction: History of Pacifism in a Society of Suppressed Traditions The Tolstoyan Pacifist Movement in Russia in the First Third of the Twentieth Century and its Legacy “Where Have Tolstoyans Gone?” Dissident Historians in Search for Folk Protest Traditions in the Mid-1970s–1980s Tolstoyism in Soviet Youth Subcultures in the Late 1970s–Early 1980s The History of the Religious and Public Journal Yasnaya Polyana, 1988–1991 Soviet Peaceniks from the Trust Group and the Russian Tradition of the COs Writing the History of Pacifism: The Short Life of Peace Studies in Russia in the 1990s Conclusion 12 Spain, Munich, Auschwitz: The Role of Historical Analogies in the Protest Movements in Europe Against the War in Bosnia and Herzegovina, 1992–1995 Introduction The 1930s and 1940s as the Main Historical Reference The Reference to the 1930/1940s as a Tool for Orientation and Mobilization The Legitimation of the Historical References to the 1930s and 1940s Concluding Questions and Remarks 13 History, Memory, and the Populist Right in Germany from the Second World War to the Present Day Introduction Historical Revisionism and the Development of the Far Right in Germany Between 1945 and the 1980s History and Memory Debates and the Far Right in Germany—An Emerging Cosmopolitan Memory Consensus of the 1980s? The Impact of Reunification on Memory and History Politics The History and Memory Politics of the AfD Conclusion: Changing History and Memory Politics in the Populist Right? Index