Whither Politics, Whither Memory?

Abstract

The memory boom, a multifaceted process fundamentally consisting in the increasing presence of the past in the present, occurred in practice simultaneously with the ostensible (transnational) stabilization of a neoliberal consensus, itself a complex process informed by deregulation, privatization, the abandonment of the politics of redistribution and the erosion of social and economic rights. By drawing attention to the concurrent characters of the history of the memory boom and the history of neoliberalism, this contribution aims to push towards an engagement with the ways in which economic transformation and memory are intertwined. This should enable us to better understand the critical political and mnemonic juncture that we find ourselves at. The question arising is whether memory has in any way the necessary critical potentialities to underlie the pursuit and realization of a radically democratic present and future.