Politics of Memory Between the Testimony and the Archive

Kuvaus

The aim of this paper is to investigate how we constitute and re-constitute collective memory through testimonies and archives. Engaging with the philosophy of Paul Ricoeur, the article argues that testimonies and archives signify two radically different ways of relating to our past. Ricoeur describes testimony as the first category of archived memory: testimonies, both oral and written, enters from memory to historical knowledge when they are deposited and consulted by historians in the archive. However, Ricoeur warns that in the transition to the archive, testimony might lose some of its autonomy. Drawing on Ricoeur’s understanding, this paper argues that, on the one hand, testimonies signify a presence-making of the past, whereas, on the other, the archive signifies a constitution of the past as a historical past. In a second step, the paper discusses the relation between memory politics and archives, with a particular focus on the historical knowledge production surrounding the Gulag Archipelago during the Cold War. The absence of memory politics and the restricted access to archives gave testimonies an extraordinary role in the historical research about the Soviet repression, one that sheds new light on the role of testimonies in the historiographical process. Focusing on the historical role of Gulag testimonies, the paper discusses the relation between archives, memory politics and collective memory.

Aikajakso	21 huhtik. 2022
Tapahtuman otsikko	The annual conference of Nordic Society for Phenomenology 2022
Tapahtuman tyyppi	Konferenssi
Sijainti	Stockholm, SwedenNäytä kartalla