Codifying Memories through Film

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 62-88
Author(s):  
Francesca Declich
Keyword(s):  
Narrative Form ◽  
Collective Memories ◽  
Video Cameras ◽  
Video Broadcasting ◽  
The Past ◽  
Forced Migrations ◽  
Documentary Video ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Indian Ocean ◽  
Audiovisual Equipment

Abstract Before the exponential diffusion of modern video broadcasting media, the history of forced migrations within Africa was mainly transmitted through the spread of individual and collective memories. Filming, instead, agglomerates memories and images by producing new overarching and often convincing interpretations of the past. This article describes how and why a documentary video on slavery in the Indian Ocean was produced and the reasons behind its narrative form. Stemming from the urge of people regarded as descendants of slaves to have their ancestral dances documented as proof of their origins, this documentary is the result of a long-range ethnographic encounter spanning time and space from the Juba River in Somalia to Malawi and the Niasa region of Mozambique. It was only audiovisual equipment like video cameras and computers that made such an amazing encounter possible.

Idealists and Realists: British Views of Germany,1864–1939

1975 ◽  
Vol 25 ◽  
pp. 137-156 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. M. Kennedy
Keyword(s):  
Narrative Form ◽  
Past Century ◽  
General Survey ◽  
Small Segment ◽  
The Past ◽  
British Policy ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Number Of Publications ◽  
Sheer Number

Yet another survey of the much-traversed field of Anglo-German relations will seem to many historians of modern Europe to border on the realm of superfluity; probably no two countries have had their relationship to each other so frequently examined in the past century as Britain and Germany. Moreover, even if one restricted such a study to the British side alone, the sheer number of publications upon this topic, or upon only a section of it like the age of ‘appeasement’, is simply too great to allow a compression of existing knowledge into a narrative form that would be anything other than crude and sketchy. The following contribution therefore seeks neither to provide such a general survey, nor, by use of new and detailed archival materials, to concentrate upon a small segment of the history of British policy towards Germany in the period 1864–1939; but instead to consider throughout all these years a particular aspect, namely, the respective arguments of Germanophiles and Germanophobes in Britain and the connection between this dialogue and the more general ideological standpoints of both sides. In so doing, the author has produced a survey which remains embarrassingly summary in detail but does at least attempt to offer a fresh approach to the subject.

Tsunami: a history of the term and of scientific understanding of the phenomenon in Japanese and Western culture

2008 ◽  
Vol 62 (2) ◽  
pp. 151-166 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julyan H.E Cartwright ◽  
Hisami Nakamura
Keyword(s):  
Indian Ocean ◽  
Natural Disasters ◽  
Coastal Areas ◽  
Scientific Understanding ◽  
Ocean Wave ◽  
Indian Ocean Tsunami ◽  
The Past ◽  
Historical Tsunami ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Indian Ocean

In the past few years we have unfortunately had several reminders of the ability of a particular type of ocean wave—a tsunami—to devastate coastal areas. The Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004, in particular, was one of the largest natural disasters of past decades in terms of the number of people killed. The name of this phenomenon, tsunami , is possibly the only term that has entered the physics lexicon from Japanese. We use Japanese and Western sources to document historical tsunami in Europe and Japan, the birth of the scientific understanding of tsunami, and how the Japanese term came to be adopted in English.

scholarly journals When and why is the forgotten past recovered? The Battle of Warsaw, 1920 and the role of local actors in the production of memory

2017 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 176-190
Author(s):  
Ewa Ochman
Keyword(s):  
Social Memory ◽  
Rapid Change ◽  
Collective Memories ◽  
Long Period ◽  
The Past ◽  
Local Actors ◽  
History Of ◽  
Institutional Actors

Memory scholars mostly agree that although social memory is culturally constructed, political and institutional actors encounter various constraints when adapting the past to their group’s needs and values. The aim of this article is to revisit this old question of the malleability and persistence of the past but in the context of the intensive memory production that emerged during a period of rapid change in post-communist transitional states. First, the article probes the question why some collective memories re-emerge after a long period of suppression while others do not. And second, it examines the conditions under which local rather than national actors become more successful in recovering the forgotten past. The focus is on Poland; its distinct history of frequent ruptures in the continuity of commemorative tradition not only opens up opportunities for less constrained work of remembrance but also for repositioning the standing of national and local agents of memory production.

A Cultural History of Memory in Antiquity

2020 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Cultural History ◽  
Cultural Memory ◽  
Ancient World ◽  
Collective Memories ◽  
The Past ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Many ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The Right ◽  
Remote Past

The ancient world is a paradigm for the memory scholar. Without an awareness that collective memories are not only different from individual memories (or even the sum thereof) but also highly constructed, ancient research will be fundamentally flawed. Many networks of memories are beautifully represented in the written and material remains of antiquity, and it is precisely the ways in which they are fashioned, distorted, preserved or erased through which we can learn about the historical process as such. Our evidence is deeply characterized by the fact that ancient ‘identity’ and ‘memory’ appear exceptionally strong. Responsible for this is a continuing desire to link the present to the remote past, which creates many contexts in which memories were constructed. The ancient historian therefore has the right tools with which to work: places and objects from the past, monuments and iconography, and textual narratives with a primary purpose to memorize and commemorate. This is paired with our desire to understand the ancient world through its own self-perception. With the opportunity of tapping into this world by way of oral history, personal testimonies are a desideratum in all respects. Memory of the past, however, is profoundly about ‘self-understanding’. This volume surveys and builds on the many insights we have gained from vibrant research in the field since Maurice Halbwachs’ and Jan Assmann’s seminal studies on the idea and definition of ‘cultural memory’. While focusing on specific themes all chapters address the concepts and expressions of memory, and their historical impact and utilization by groups and individuals at specific times and for specific reasons.

scholarly journals The Unpredictable Lightness of History in Nicolas Cavaillès’ Novellas on the Mauritius Islands

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 65-76
Author(s):  
Fevronia Novac
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of History ◽  
Historical Narrative ◽  
Historical Narratives ◽  
Individual Freedom ◽  
Western History ◽  
The Past ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Indian Ocean ◽  
The Dead ◽  
Mauritius Island

Nicolas Cavaillès ponders on a philosophy of history mixed with humour and irony in his historical narratives of remote islands in the Indian Ocean in two of his novellas: Life of Mr. Legaut (the story of a Huguenot who is forced to leave his native France and travels to these islands) and The Dead on the Donkey, where the wanderings of un unfortunate donkey across the Mauritius Island allow the narrator to relate the history of the island and its tragic trajectory to modernity. The idea of Western history as progressive evolution is rolled upside down with irony in Cavaillès's philosophical reflection on the circumstances leading to colonial expeditions in Life of Mr. Leguat (2013) and in the successive destruction of the Mauritius Island in the novella The Dead on the Donkey (2018). If Cavaillès builds his books hermeneutically, he also defies hermeneutics by denying all forms of possible understanding of the events described. The actions of his protagonists, human or animal, are the result of circumstances that are well known, but so absurd that they cannot form a historical narrative. If they did, this narrative would look like a hybrid of Beckett's absurd and Cioran's despair. Anti-Hegelian, since history here does not lead to individual freedom, Cavaillès's conception of history equally challenges Nietzsche's representation of unhistorical temporality in an attempt to solve humanity’s relation to the past for enacting a more desirable future. In far away Edenic islands, colonized by powerful states and inhabited by human and animal slaves, no philosophy could make sense of history.

scholarly journals Reflections on the History of the Indian Ocean: the sources and their relation to local practices and global connectivities

2009 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne K. Bang
Keyword(s):  
Indian Ocean ◽  
Western Indian Ocean ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
The Past ◽  
Local Practices ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Indian Ocean

This paper discusses the interpretation of sources for Indian Ocean history, from the point of view of translocal interpretations beyond the locality of the source. The article presents three cases, all deriving from the Muslim South-Western Indian Ocean. The argument is made that the ambiguity of the sources, and the interrelationship between the various locations related to the source, affect not only the historians interpretation but also the sense of the past held by people in these locations.

scholarly journals Shifting memories and forced migrations: the Somali Zigula migration to Tanzania

Africa ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 88 (3) ◽  
pp. 539-559
Author(s):  
Francesca Declich
Keyword(s):  
Forced Migration ◽  
Oral Traditions ◽  
Collective Memories ◽  
The Past ◽  
The People ◽  
Number Of Factors ◽  
Forced Migrations ◽  
Written Form ◽  
Specific Culture ◽  
The Way

AbstractForced migrations, both now and in the past, imply a process of constructing and modifying accounts of past events, which become codified in memories. Memories are constructed to negotiate and reshape identity in the country of arrival. A number of factors interact in this process, some aspects are silenced and others emphasized, and new events may be invented. One of the arguments I make elsewhere is that, along the way, memories of the past, especially if gathered and codified through writing, may lose meanings that are unknown to the people who codify them. Yet, in times of forced migration, certain aspects of the memories re-emerge from the background and gain new relevance. This was the case, for instance, with matriliny and matrilineal names, which were not recognized or emphasized by those who codified certain oral traditions of migrations at specific historical times in written form in Somalia. Yet, in the process of seeking integration in Tanzania after the forced migration caused by the 1992 war in Somalia, these aspects regained their importance in Somali Zigula memories and helped to achieve inclusion in the country of migration. Zigula memories of the past have undergone some changes. The way in which these changes have occurred is not unique: the process of modelling memories of the past that are based on idioms of kinship follows specific patterns that are part of a specific culture of mobility. Based on fieldwork carried out with refugees forced to migrate from southern Somalia to Tanzania in the early 1990s, I show how their collective memories of past events took on newly gendered features when circumstances changed and the main spoken language progressively shifted from Kizigula to Kiswahili.

Eternalising Cultural Memory Through Cultural Parallels in Literary Narratives

IJOHMN ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 65-74
Author(s):  
Dr. Sumathi Shivakumar
Keyword(s):  
Cultural History ◽  
Cultural Memory ◽  
Indian Philosophy ◽  
Collective Memories ◽  
The Real ◽  
Modern Times ◽  
The Past ◽  
History Of ◽  
Ancient Times ◽  
What Matters

Cultural memory represents the collective perceptions and creations of the distant past. Such collective memories are best documented and secured in Literature. What matters is not the real facts but rather the consensus of conventions shared by both the cultural history and the literary creator. However, literary narratives do not always give a compilation of such memories under a single wrap. It is on this distinctive point that Jakkana stands out in eternalising cultural memory. BasavarajNaikar’s novella, Jakkanna is the retelling of the life and history of the AmarsilpiJakkannacharya, the famed architect of the Hoysala dynasty. The plot is replete with events that have been happening from the ancient times. Parallels of such incidents that have endured to the modern times can be drawn from the two great epics and other ancient Indian philosophy and literatures. This article aims at highlighting such aspects of our lives that seems to have been greatly influenced by the past. It also looks at such events that have endured eras.

scholarly journals Reflexivity or orientation? Collective memories in the Australian, Canadian and New Zealand national press

2018 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 519-536 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jack Black
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
British Empire ◽  
Newspaper Coverage ◽  
Press Coverage ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Collective Memories ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Press ◽  
History Of ◽  
National Newspaper

With regard to the notion of ‘national reflexivity’, an important part of Beck’s cosmopolitan outlook, this article examines how, and in what ways, collective memories of empire were reflexively used in Australian, Canadian and New Zealand national newspaper coverage of the 2012 Diamond Jubilee and London Olympic Games. In contrast to Beck, it is argued that examples of national reflexivity were closely tied to the history of the nation-state, with collective memories of the former British Empire used to debate, critique and appraise ‘the nation’. These memories were discursively used to ‘orientate’ each nation’s postcolonial emergence, suggesting that examples of national reflexivity, within the press’ coverage, remained closely tied to the ‘historical fetishes’ enveloped in each nations’ imperial past(s). This implies that the ‘national outlook’ does not objectively overlook, uncritically absorb or reflexively acknowledge differences with ‘the other’ but, instead, negotiates a historically grounded and selective appraisal of the past that reveals a contingent and, at times, ambivalent, interplay with ‘the global’.

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