Collective memory Flashcards
Ethnographic present, Radcliffe-Brown
structural functionalist - “We do research in societies without historical sources. historical research would be pure speculation”
ethnographic present, Lévi-Strauss
Structuralist - “The more that changes, the more that it remains the same thing”
L.P. Harley
Historian that turns to anthropology - “The past is a foreign country, they do things differently there”
Social Memory talks of
- Collective experience and understanding the past
- The way a society remembers and forgets
- Who gets a statue, who will be in a nameless grave
- What past is made visible, what past is made invisible
- Heritage studies
- Crucial for the formation of collective identities
How do societies maintain a shared memory in globalization, urbanization, modernization?
According to Pierre Nora - lieux de mémoire: specific sites, symbols, or practices where collective memory of a group or nation is anchored and preserved
implicit social knowledge
Michael Taussig, ‘lessons from the schools of life’.Underground reservoir of knowledge in society.
1970s - The Return of History
Marxist ideas - societes are not timeless entities, but change over time.
Example: Colonialism and imperialism changed societies who were exploited and the exploiters.
Jan Vansina
Looked at the value of oral traditions as history
“Small Histories”
Anthropologists became more concerned with small stories and normal people over big wars and men
Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney
Looked at relationship between anthropology and history. Claims that anthropologists should study
1) Historical processes
2) Social Memory
3) The writings of history
Heritage Studies
Anita M.Waters - focused on how nations produce lists of patrimony/heritages that are at the heart of the nation. Deserves celebration and preservation at for instance museums
Social Memory (in short)
People learn what to remember and what to forget
