Collective memory, social representations of intercommunal relations, and conflict transformation in divided Cyprus.

2016 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 19-27 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charis Psaltis
Keyword(s):  
Collective Memory ◽  
Social Representations ◽  
Conflict Transformation

Analysing contested pasts: a reply to Erin Hinson’s ‘Our Journey, Our Narrative’: narratives of (para)militarism and conflict transformation in the ACT exhibition

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 531-535
Author(s):  
Rachel Oppenheimer
Keyword(s):  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Collective Memory ◽  
Conflict Transformation ◽  
Recent Past ◽  
Community Transformation ◽  
History Of

This reply examines Erin Hinson’s ‘“Our Journey, Our Narrative”: Narratives of para(militarism) and conflict transformation in the ACT exhibition’. It argues that a study of heritage construction, such as Hinson’s is especially fruitful in societies like Northern Ireland where peace is a project of the recent past, because memories of conflict become the subsequent arena of struggle. Moreover, it asserts that Hinson’s work is at its strongest when she ties artefacts from the Action for Community Transformation (ACT) exhibition to a legitimising mission on the part of former loyalist paramilitaries as well as when she examines the motivations of ACT’s creators and artefact donors. In answer, this reply enunciates the strands of collective memory to which the ACT exhibition speaks. These include the official memories of scholars, the dismissive memory of non-combatants likely to view former paramilitaries as mindless thugs, and the competing memory of Irish republicans. The reply continues by bringing up questions engendered by Hinson’s research while suggesting possible ramifications of the answers to those questions. It concludes by reminding the reader of the importance of studies of this nature based on the fact that scholars have only recently begun to engage with the history of loyalism in Northern Ireland in a dispassionate way.

Contested Fronts Archive: Emancipatory urban practices for constructive conflict transformation

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 163-193
Author(s):  
Socrates Stratis
Keyword(s):  
Collective Memory ◽  
Open Source ◽  
Conflict Transformation ◽  
The Political ◽  
Spatial Practices ◽  
Constructive Conflict ◽  
Hands On ◽  
The Commons ◽  
Political Dimensions ◽  
Venice Biennale

Decolonizing archiving practices is about emancipatory actions rather than databases. It is about conveying a multitude of actions where conflictual narratives exist. The process of democratization of societies in conflict could take place by increasing the degree of access, of the constitution and of interpretation of archives that have to do with collective memory and urban knowledge. In spaces of conflict, however, any kind of public archive, and collective memory are under the control of the dominant political powers. They use them to sustain divisive status quos. ‘Contested Fronts: Commoning Practices for Conflict Transformation’ challenges such control. It is the curatorial project of the Cyprus pavilion, curated by the author, for the 15th Venice Biennale of Architecture. It is an open-source archive, part of an agonistic architecture, that assembles international spatial practices, networks and pedagogical programmes. They are complementary to an activist Cypriot project, the ‘Hands-on Famagusta’ project. They all offer methods, inspirations and imaginaries about constructively transforming conflicts by encouraging the emergence of emancipatory commoning practices to support the commons during a potential reunification of the divided island of Cyprus. In the article, I shortly discuss the political dimensions of archive and its use by critical spatial practices. I further on, discuss issues concerning conflict and how its transformation can have constructive or destructive consequences. Additionally, I unpack the three notions constituting the ‘Contested Fronts’ commoning practices, those of countermapping, threshold and controversy. I examine how ‘Contested Fronts’ constitute an open-source archive thanks to its content, to its performativity as well as to its manifestation in the form of exhibition-on-the move.

scholarly journals The useful past in negotiation: Adolescents' use of history in negotiation of inter-group conflict

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tsafrir Goldberg
Keyword(s):  
Collective Memory ◽  
Social Representations ◽  
Historical Documents ◽  
Formal Schooling ◽  
Historical Knowledge ◽  
Collective Memories ◽  
Group Relations ◽  
The Past ◽  
Collective Narratives ◽  
The Impact

Much of the concern with young people's historical knowledge centres on factual attainment or disciplinary skills. However, relatively little attention is paid to the relevance that young people attribute to history and how they use the past, and various social representations of history, to relate to the present. Research in this realm tends to emphasize the impact of collective memory narratives on individuals, rather than individuals' agency in using them. In this article, I will examine the ways 155 Jewish and Arab Israeli adolescents related the past to the present as they discussed the Jewish–Arab conflict and its resolution. Discussants made diverse references to the past: from family history, via biblical allusions and collective memories, to formal, schooling-based historical documents. Individuals used these references to the past to negotiate the present and future of inter-group relations. Furthermore, they made strategic use of references to others' narratives. Thus historical knowledge and collective narratives, which are usually perceived as constraining and structuring learners' perceptions, can be seen as repositories of resources and affordances.

scholarly journals The naturalized nation: Anchoring, objectification and naturalized social representations of history

2016 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 646-669 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eemeli Hakoköngäs ◽  
Inari Sakki
Keyword(s):  
Collective Memory ◽  
Social Representations ◽  
Visual Images ◽  
Semiotic Analysis ◽  
Collective Memories ◽  
Conceptual Clarity ◽  
Social Representations Theory ◽  
Visual Element ◽  
Meaning System ◽  
History Books

This study focuses on the connection between social representations of history and collective memory from the perspective of elementary concepts of social representations theory: anchoring, objectification and naturalization. The aims of the study are to arrive at a conceptual clarity of this connection and demonstrate how to apply basic concepts of social representations theory to the study of collective memory. The study also focuses on the naturalized characteristics of Finnish history. The data consist of the covers of twenty Finnish history books between the years 1965 and 2014. All the covers are embellished with typography or visual images. The covers were analysed using a semiotic approach in which the interest is in the description (denotation), the associations (connotation) and the meaning system these construe (myth). The analysis shows how national history is concretized with visual images (objectification), how the meaning of representation is conveyed (anchoring) and how collective memory is maintained (naturalization), transmitted and shaped during the years. The results show how the stable collective memories and changing social representations of history are interacting. The most frequently used visual element was the colour blue, which alludes to the Finnish flag, a symbol of the nation that represents the core of Finnish history. The study suggests that it is possible to conceptualize collective memories as naturalized social representations of history. It shows how processes of anchoring and objectification serve as tools of collective memory and how the naturalized conceptions are subtly changed. In addition, the study develops the use of visual semiotic analysis in social representations research.

Towards a pedagogy of reconciliation and transformation: A peace education through art initiative in response to 26/11

2022 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-73 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mousumi De
Keyword(s):  
Collective Memory ◽  
Peace Education ◽  
Conflict Transformation ◽  
Common People ◽  
Negative Attitudes ◽  
Theoretical Concepts ◽  
Curricular Framework ◽  
Political Relations ◽  
The Common ◽  
Peace And Reconciliation

The 26/11 Mumbai attacks in India severely impacted the already strained Indo–Pak political relations and fuelled prejudice against the common people of Pakistan. Since the attacks, Indian people have found various expressions of collective memory and ways to commemorate the incident. While these serve as a remembrance of the attack, it also reinforces negative attitudes towards Pakistan and its people, hindering any prospects of peace and reconciliation. This article describes a peace education through art initiative implemented in a high school in Mumbai. It draws from a synergy of theoretical concepts in peace, reconciliation and conflict transformation for its curricular framework that has three inquiry processes: Examine–Envision–Envisage. This article describes the implementation and outcomes of the initiative that support the value of an integrated peace- and reconciliation-focused art education pedagogy aimed at promoting reconciliation in relation to ongoing/intractable conflicts. Furthermore, it highlights the importance of addressing negative emotions inherent in ongoing conflicts and how empathy might contribute towards reducing prejudice towards the ‘Other’.

scholarly journals To Remember or to Forget: Political Repression in the Collective Memory of Descendants

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 825-848
Author(s):  
Inna B. Bovina ◽  
Tatiana V. Ryabova ◽  
Vladislav Y. Konkin
Keyword(s):  
Collective Memory ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Traumatic Event ◽  
Social Representations ◽  
Emotional Reactions ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Proximal Development ◽  
Political Repression ◽  
Psychological Knowledge ◽  
New Variables

The question of political repression divides society and polarizes public discourse. Understanding political repression through the prism of socio-psychological knowledge is a zone of proximal development for researchers, because the suicidal nature of repression, which A.M. Etkind points out, makes it difficult to understand terror, hinders the work of mechanisms that operate in a society that has come into contact with a catastrophe of such magnitude and duration. The study is devoted to the study of social ideas about repression, as well as emotional reactions towards repression and the repressed among the descendants of the repressed, i.e., their children and grandchildren. A total of 110 people (61.82% - females) aged 44 to 78 years, 93.63% with higher education, participated in the study. The sample included three groups: the generation of children (21 people, M = 59.52 years; SD = 9.04); the generation of grandchildren (63 people, M = 54.71 years; SD = 7.66); and the control group (26 people, M = 53.65 years; SD = 7.72). A survey in the form of a questionnaire was used, followed by a prototypical analysis of associations, which made it possible to identify the structure of ideas about repression in the three groups. To analyze emotional reactions, a factor analysis of scores on 38 scales was carried out, followed by an analysis on the new variables. The characteristics of the structure of social representations (the core and periphery zones) are consistent with the initial hypothesis that the supposedly traumatic event of repression is perceived as a personal one by the descendants but as a social one by the respondents of the control group. There were no differences in the severity of emotional reactions in relation to the category of repressions and repressed between the generations. The combined group of descendants significantly differs from the control group in the greater severity of indicators when assessing the category of repression by the factors of Anxiety, Depression and Grief, and when assessing the category of repressed by the factor of Grief. The results of the study of social ideas about the past allow us to talk about the collective memory of repression in two generations of the descendants of the repressed: in the structure of the inner world of generations of descendants, repression is a personal event of family history, colored by sorrowful feelings of varying degrees of intensity and depth.

scholarly journals Rethinking the Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict: Identity, Politics, Scholarship

2010 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-56 ◽  
Author(s):  
Phil Gamaghelyan
Keyword(s):  
Collective Memory ◽  
Identity Politics ◽  
Peace Process ◽  
Conflict Transformation ◽  
Practical Work ◽  
Critical Research ◽  
General Overview ◽  
Identity Based ◽  
Comprehensive Study

AbstractThis article builds on the author’s research concerning the role of collective memory in identity-based conflicts, as well as his practical work as the co-director of the Imagine Center for Conflict Transformation and as a trainer and facilitator with various Azerbaijani-Armenian dialogue initiatives. It is not a comprehensive study of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, but presents a general overview of the Nagorno-Karabakh peace process, what has contributed to its failure, and which areas require major rethinking of conventional approaches. The discussion does not intend to present readers with a set of conclusions, but to provide suggestions for further critical research.

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