Memory

Abstract

Research on memory—from the cognitive and neurobiological aspects of remembering and forgetting to inquiries in the social sciences and humanities about how societies remember—is inherently interdisciplinary. The study of memory in the social sciences has gone through several waves. First, there was the foundational work on collective memory in the 1920s, led by figures such as Maurice Halbwachs and Aby Warburg, which opened the study of memory in social contexts as distinct from the cognitive study of individual memory formation. Second, the re-emergence and consolidation of memory theories within a national context in the 1980s and 1990s was shaped by the Assmanns’ theorization of cultural memory and by Pierre Nora’s work on lieux de mémoire. The transnational turn, described as the third wave, examined memory on a global scale in its entangled forms, circulating between national contexts. Finally, since the 2010s, a call has emerged for a fourth wave that focuses on the environment and its transformations, along with new work on slow memory processes. Even before memory studies was solidified as an interdisciplinary field, the study of memory had been anchored in sociology, history, and in cultural studies. Since the 2000s, anthropologists have also spoken of a memory boom in the discipline, with particular attention to practices of remembrance. Themes like trauma, violence, nostalgia, but also migration are central to understanding memory transmission, and anthropological research showcases the dynamic and evolving nature of memory and memorialization practices.