The unanchored past: Three modes of collective memory

Abstract

All forms of collective memory embody attempts at meaning-making - efforts to integrate experience and provide a coherent foundation for individual and collective identities. However, different modes of collective memory have different meaning-making potentials. In this article, I will assess three modes of remembering, namely folk, commemorative and mediatised memory, from the perspective of how they generate integrative meaning. Each of these modes of remembrance will be examined through the prism of a case study examining the nature of the memories associated with a specific lieux de memoire. I will suggest that over time, memory becomes progressively ‘unanchored’ from localised contexts due to its increasing technological and institutional mediation and that this has important implications for the depth and kind of meaning it provides.