development of conscious efforts to preserve memories
A common sense of the past confers a sense of stability upon an otherwise ever-changing present. That sense of continuity provides the foundation of common social identity (Lowenthal 1975). Social historian John R. Gillis explains that “the core meaning of any individual or group identity, namely, a sense of sameness over time and space, is sustained by remembering; and what is remembered is defined by the assumed identity” (Gillis 1994, p. 3). Key here is the notion of an “assumed identity” – one that while seemingly constant is subject to change just as collective memory changes.
Anthropologist Richard Handler (1994) warns against the reification of identity noting that identities are relative in both time and space – both historically and geographically constructed. The link between past and present is therefore a flexible one. Our interpretation of the past is in part a consequence of our present identity. Because identity is relative rooted in continually evolving social and cultural conditions, memories are recalled and reinterpreted as those conditions change. According to Foote (2003), culture itself is a form of collective memory. Shared interpretations of past events automatically confer an importance to the temporal perspective; however, just as important is the recognition that memory, like culture, is also spatial, rooted in place (Cosgrove 1984; Nora 1989; Bruner 1994; Lowenthal 1997). The cultural landscape then is inscribed with ways of seeing the past – an interwoven network of individual sites of memory and commemoration that reflect power relations in society that take on a communal meaning and provide a way for the everyday present to interact with the past (Lowenthal 1997). Pierre Nora (1989) traces the development of conscious efforts to preserve memories to the development of modern society.
We no longer live the traditions of the past, so we must consciously preserve them. In the past, conservation of institutionalized memory in the form of archives and genealogies was only for the elite in society. Today, intentional sites of memory are created at a variety of social and spatial scales. Sites of memory today provide us with evidence of our rise from humble beginnings to “success, stability, and progress” within an ever-changing world (Lowenthal 1994, p. 44; see also Bodnar 1986; Schwartz et al. 1986). They provide us with the impression of continuity of identity by linking our present circumstances to the past. The contemporary material world then provides us with tangible objects and impressions of the past that we not only inherit, preserve and pass on, but also may selectively reclaim, ignore, or forget.
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