Towards erasure studies: Excavating the material conditions of memory and forgetting

Abstract

While the history and practices of collecting have received considerable attention over the past few decades, the notion of erasure – of the deleting, removal or destruction of material, whether deliberate or otherwise – has remained largely in the shadows. We challenge this neglect by placing erasure centre stage and treating it as a productive phenomenon in its own right. Indeed, we suggest that it forms a significant precondition for the very possibility of memory and collections. This article draws upon a recent turn to consider questions of forgetting, ignorance and ending to lay out the grounds for analysing the various roles played by erasure in making and unmaking our world. Inspired by Paul Connerton's discussion of different types of forgetting, we present five distinct forms of erasure that we regard as principally important: (i) repressive erasure, (ii) protective erasure, (iii) operative erasure, (iv) amending erasure and (v) calamitous and neglectful erasure. In each case, we discuss the characteristic logic of the erasure at hand and provide examples of the historical and media-specific forms in which it has been enacted. Our aim in doing so is to provide future researchers with some of the analytical tools and perspectives necessary to engage in further erasure studies. For if we are interested in making sense of the shifting and complex world we inhabit, then the interdisciplinary study of the compelling yet elusive phenomenon of erasure is an excellent place to start.