Memories Between Silence and Oblivion

‘Non-Servile Virtuosi’ in Insubordinate Spaces: School Disaffection, Refusal and Resistance in a Former English Coalfield

“…In the case of all the adults I have observed and interviewed, the data confirm the power in their lives of a social memory of conflict (see Passerini, 2006, as well as Fentress & Wickham, 1992). It also confirms their own commonly expressed view that social memory continues to act on the present, almost a generation after the 1984-85 strike and subsequent local pit closures, as Stacey recognises:…”

“…As we've noted already, writings on Italian operaismo and the later autonomia movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s have become much more available, particularly in the wake of the successful publication of Negri's Empire in 2000. It is now possible to trace a genealogical line between archive material from the time (see, for example, Tronti, 2007;Bologna, 2007) and more recent developments in the work of some key figures (Virno, 1996a, b;Agamben, 2000Agamben, , 2008Hardt & Negri, 2001, 2006Beradi, 2009).…”

“…It is now available in English (see Elliott, 2008) and is becoming increasingly influential in fields that are endeavouring to grasp and revivify political praxis in the contemporary moment. Second, and much more significantly in relation to our field of educational change, employing such a vocabulary to reconfigure school disaffection might help us develop a debate about how apparently individualistic resistant agency might yet be articulated to wider, 'multitudinous' (see Hardt & Negri, 2001, 2006 projects of social change. Positioning resistance as refusal -as a meaningful political strategy in its own right -potentially moves us beyond the charge of 'romanticizing' young people's rejection of education (Walker, 1986) as a kind of valorised, sexist 'hooliganism' (Delamont, 2000).…”

Introduction

“…The articles by Kate Kennedy and Oliver Wilkinson focus on the First World War and its aftermath; those by Linda Maynard and Lucy Noakes on the Second World War; and the contributions of Corinna Peniston-Bird and Wendy Ugolini trace memorialization from each war to the present day. Together these articles illustrate how coming to terms with absence and death was a cultural as well as a psychological activity.Silence is inextricably linked with, and situated within the cultural processes of remembering and forgetting (Passerini, 2006;Winter, 2010). Jay Winter defines silences as hidden deposits which are 'concealed at some moments and revealed at others' and insists that they must be examined as 'part of the cartography of recollection and remembrance' within twentieth-century history (2010: 3).…”

“…Silence is inextricably linked with, and situated within the cultural processes of remembering and forgetting (Passerini, 2006;Winter, 2010). Jay Winter defines silences as hidden deposits which are 'concealed at some moments and revealed at others' and insists that they must be examined as 'part of the cartography of recollection and remembrance' within twentieth-century history (2010: 3).…”