Publication Type
Book Chapter
Version
acceptedVersion
Publication Date
7-2010
Abstract
To have “memory” of an event, humans have to experience it themselves. Learning of an event secondhand, humans acquire knowledge, but not memory. Yet, when sociologists speak of “collective memory,” they routinely include as agents of memory those who do not have firsthand experience of a past event. This inclusion has been taken for granted ever since Maurice Halbwachs (1992) formulated his Durkheimian theory of the relationship between collective memory and commemoration in terms of group solidarity and identity: collective memory emerges when those without firsthand experience of an event identify with those who have such experience, defining both sets of actors as sharing membership in the same social group. The creation of this affect-laden, first-person orientation to a past event is at the crux of commemoration—simply put, a ritual that transforms “historical knowledge” into “collective memory” consisting of mnemonic schemas and objects that define the meaning of a past event as a locus of collective identity. According to Halbwachs’s formulation, commemoration is a vehicle of collective memory.
Discipline
Sociology of Culture
Research Areas
Sociology
Publication
Handbook of Cultural Sociology
Editor
John R. Hall, Laura Grindstaff, & Ming-Cheng Lo
First Page
629
Last Page
638
ISBN
9780415474450
Identifier
10.4324/9780203891377.ch60
Publisher
Routledge
City or Country
London
Citation
SAITO, Hiro. (2010). From Collective Memory to Commemoration. In Handbook of Cultural Sociology (pp. 629-638). London: Routledge.
Available at: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soss_research/1897
Copyright Owner and License
Author
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Additional URL
https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203891377.ch60