Locating Transnational Memory

Abstract

The conventional understanding of public remembrance has been contained within the boundaries of the nation, the state, or the local community. With the arrival of what Astrid Erll has called the Bthird phase^of memory studies (Erll 2011, 4), commemoration is now analyzed in terms of its Bunbounded^quality and is Bconsidered a fluid and flexible affair^(Bond et al. 2016, 1). Memory straddles established divides, it moves and travels, and it is actively transformed in the process. And yet, a significant part of what continues to fascinate scholars about memory is its groundedness in concrete locations. The possibility of Bvisiting^one's object of research, of interacting with those who experience memory as the intended (or unintended) audience, and witnessing transnationality Bup close^is what draws scholarly inquiry. So how can we best connect the obvious significance of the local to the reality of transnational remembering? This special issue addresses this tension between the production of remembrance through transnational processes and its grounding in concrete locations. Underlining the presence of transnationality in commemoration, this volume examines how historical events and experiences that transcend national boundaries, global norms, experiences of mobility, or awareness of the Bworld out there^are manifested in particular realms of memory. The contributors come from different disciplinary backgrounds (literary studies, sociology, political science, history, peace, and conflict studies) and focus on memory spaces in a diverse set of geographies-including in Australia, Austria, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Norway, the Philippines, South Africa, and the USA. They also investigate sites dedicated to different and complex pasts that are transnationalized through various mechanisms and with different results for local remembrance. 1

Reorientation of foreign memories in domestic political speech: Considerations and effects

“…As such, transnational memory is conceptualized according to notions of mobility and movement. Within this framework, research has focused on the “relationship between multiple localities of memory” (see Wüstenberg, 2019: 374; see also Törnquist-Plewa, 2018) and “the scales of remembrance that intersect in the crossing of geo-political borders” (Rothberg, 2014: 130, emphasis in the original). For instance, Björkdahl and Kappler (2019), using the case studies of South Africa and Bosnia Herzegovina, examine how memory discourses of “never again” are translated to specific audiences.…”

Explosive aftermaths: Reassembling transnational memory- and policyscapes of victims and terrorism in the United Kingdom

“…Building again from Appadurai’s (1990) work on *scapes, Phillips and Reyes (2011) have developed the concept Global Memoryscapes as a complex landscape upon which memories and memory practices move, come into contact, are contested by, and contest other forms of remembrance and older ways of conceptualizing the past (Phillips and Reyes, 2011: 13–14). The idea of the global memoryscape is one of a series of interventions in memory studies that aim to transcend ideas of the nation as the primary framework, motor and container of collective memories to conceptualize processes of ‘transnational memory’ (Assmann, 2014; David, 2020; De Cesari and Rigney, 2014; McQuaid and Gensburger, 2019; Wüstenberg, 2019). In this case, there are two key points to keep in mind: first, in ethno-national conflicts, the frameworks for collective memory are already transnational, both beyond and below the level of the nation-state.…”

10 Storywalking as Transnational Method: From Juteopolis to Sugaropolis

“…35 Jenny Wüstenberg asks: 'how is transnational remembering made local or grounded in concrete memory sites and how are such sites made transnational?' 36 The memories of Timex in Dundee are intermingled with those of workers at the Timex plants in Portugal, or France, to create the transnational memories of Timex in Europe. But although connected they are specific and ultimately bound up with the site itself.…”