Memory Fragmentation from Below and Beyond the State: Uses of the Past in Conflict and Post-conflict Settings

This volume suggests a model of collective memory that distinguishes between two conceptual logics of memory fragmentation: vertical fragmentation and horizontal fragmentation. It offers a series of case studies of conflict and post-conflict collective memory, shedding light on the ways various actors participate in the production, dissemination, and contestation of memory discourses.

With attention to the characteristics of both vertical and horizontal memory fragmentation, the book addresses the plurality of diverging, and often conflicting, memory discourses that are produced within the public sphere of a given community. It analyzes the juxtaposition, tensions, and interactions between narratives produced beyond or below the central state, often transcending national boundaries.

The book is structured according to the type of actors involved in a memory fragmentation process. It explores how states have been trying to produce and impose memory discourses on civil societies, sometimes even against the experiences of their own citizens, and how such efforts as well as backlash from actors below and beyond the state have led to horizontal and vertical memory fragmentation. Furthermore, it considers the attempts by states’ representatives to reassert control of national memory discourses and the subsequent resistances they face. As such, this volume will appeal to sociology and political science scholars interested in memory studies in post-conflict societies.

Eric Sangar is Assistant Professor in Political Science at Sciences Po Lille, University of Lille, France, as well as Fellow at the Marc Bloch Centre, Berlin, Germany.

Valérie Rosoux is Research Director at the FNRS and Professor in Political Science at UCLouvain, Belgium, as well as Fellow at the Max Planck Institutes Luxembourg and Halle, Luxembourg and Germany.

Anne Bazin is Assistant Professor in Political Science at Sciences Po Lille, University of Lille, France.

Emmanuelle Hébert External Scientific Fellow at the Institut de Sciences Politiques Louvain Europe (ISPOLE) at UCLouvain, Belgium.