Europeanization of National Memory Scapes

Gefördert im Rahmen des SFB 536 „Reflexive Modernisierung“:

The research project “Europeanization of National Memory Spaces” entered its second phase in July 2005 under the guidance of Prof. Dr. Ulrich Beck, Prof. Daniel Levy, Ph.D. and Prof. Dr. Harald Welzer. It is part of a special research group 536 on “reflexive modernization,” that explores a ‘cosmopolitan turn’ in sociological thought and a corresponding transition from First to Second Modernity. As a result many of the existing basic premises, including the national taken-for-granted, are subject to negotiations in Second Modernity. Accordingly, the first phase of the project examined how political and cultural forms of collective memory are being transformed in the age of globalization. The empirical goal of the study has been to investigate the different forms the politics of forgiveness and restitution in Europe have taken. To this end we conducted three case studies and analyzed debates about expulsion and restitution for Nazi slave labour in Germany, Austria, and Poland. Based on the analysis of public and official discourse we demonstrated that collective memory is being transformed. Results of our investigation indicate the emergence of memory forms that transcend the nation-state context and complement it with a Europe-wide realm of collective memory. This transformation is marked by the blurring of memories of self and other, that is, the previously separated narratives of victims and perpetrators are frequently harmonized through an emphasis on a witness perspective. While the nation-state looses in dominance, it by no means, becomes obsolete. Rather collective memory is now situated in a context of de-nationalized memories and attempts at re-nationalization. This dialectic of constructive recognition of the other and re-nationalizing exclusion we describe as the cosmopolitanization of memory.

In the second phase of the project, we build on the results of the previous phase, but extend the focus of our inquiry beyond the official realm of memory. Two central aspects of contemporary manifestations of collective memory stand at the center of our attention: one relates to the growing interaction between the ongoing legal integration of Europe and the politics of memory. To what extent are nation-transcending ideas such as human rights becoming part of individual European nation-states. To maintain continuity, we explore the juridification of memory and the concomitant memorialization of past injustices in Germany, Austria and Poland, with a thematic focus on expulsion debates and related forms of minority protection.

The other research focus, in collaboration with the Center for Interdisciplinary Memory Research at the Kulturwissenschaftliches Institut in Essen, seeks to explore the intersection of public and private memory, which for the most part remains an understudied relationship in the field of collective memory studies. How does the change of public memory affect private forms of memory? Is private memory also being cosmopolitanized? Or can we observe the persistence of private memory forms that remain largely independent from public narratives? Of particular interest is the intersection of national boundaries and the extent to which memories of other groups and people are incorporated into one’s own sense of collective self-understanding. Are memories of others being thematized in private contexts? And if yes, how are they constructed? These questions will be studies on the basis of group discussions in Germany, Poland and Austria, to ensure continuity as well as facilitate a comparison of the ‘public’ data we collected in the previous phase and the ‘private’ data yielded from the upcoming research. That will allow us to study how communicative strategies in private groups lead to the articulation of shared sets of memories and the extent which they are connected to public tropes. This systematic attempt aims to produce a unique data set that will allow us to bridge a conceptual lacuna (i.e. the relationship of private and public memories) as well as shed light on the potentialities of nation-transcending forms of memory in the European context.