Pasts are contested by competing memory entrepreneurs, not settled in one canon
Evidence
Over and above these four common elements, this kind of comparison has the advantage of foregrounding two other aspects more clearly than would have been possible using a purely monographic approach: namely, the constitutive plurality of memories on the one hand and their structural imbrication on the other. Plurality of memories finds expression not solely in the routinely simultaneous existence of several interpretations of the same event, all competing for dominant, canonic status, but also in the fact that this plurality itself reflects the plurality of memory places, of interested parties and of what can only be called the memory lobbies and ‘memory entrepreneurs’. — Manuel Borutta and Jan C. Jansen, Vertriebene and Pieds-Noirs in Postwar…, 1302
Categorization
- DEFINE: Introduces the useful concept of ‘memory entrepreneurs’ as the agents who manufacture and police particular constructions of the past.
- XREF: connects to: The past constrains identity but is always narrativized, not literally recovered. — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2: Identity…, 256; Historical narratives serve different functions in identity-forming versus change-driving commons. — Emil Sandström and Ann-Kristin Ekman and Karl-Johan Lindholm, Commoning in the periphery – The role…, 82; Recent traumas resist national myth-making because their memory is still real, not mythic. — Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on…, 737 (+2 more)
Broader Connections
- The past constrains identity but is always narrativized, not literally recovered.
#corroborates(0.85) — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2, 256 - Recent traumas resist national myth-making because their memory is still real, not mythic.
#corroborates(0.80) — Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities, 737 - Intellectuals claiming continuity with the past are fossilized remnants
#exemplifies(0.78) - Historical narratives serve different functions in identity-forming versus change-driving commons.
#expands(0.75) — Emil Sandström and Ann-Kristin Ekman and Karl-Johan Lindholm, Commoning in the periphery – The role…, 82 - Master-narratives persist unconsciously rather than disappearing outright
#corroborates(0.75) — Jean-François Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition, 43