The Future in and for Memory Studies

This talk expands on the so-called third wave of memory studies. I examine the impact of globalization on how we work with memory and how memory works. The consolidation of the Human Rights Regime during the 1990s, stands in elective affinity with a cosmopolitan turn in the study of mnemonic practices. The contours of a cosmopolitan framework for memory studies will be presented along two key areas: changing temporal experiences and evolving conceptions of solidarity. Non-teleological future(s) and the reconfiguration of solidarities, I argue, constitute new epistemological foundations for the study of memories. The talk will address both topics in terms of their recent history and the conceptual surcharge they offer for memory scholars. The cultural and political salience of memory politics is circumscribed by the outlines of the past-present-future nexus. With the proliferation of toxic (and frequently contested) pasts and the limited appeal of progress-based futurity, memory studies become a central prism for the assessment of resilience. Co-extensive with these trajectories, I contend, is the transformation of the nature, scale and reference points of solidarities in the context of global interdependencies and awareness to human rights abuses. Whether these developments lead to more resilience and/or the intensification of conflicts, both within and between political communities, remains an empirical question. However, the centrality of memory, expressed through competing visions of political futures and solidaristic figurations, provides a powerful heuristic framework.