scholarly journals Social Memory: From Oblivion or Construction to Cultural Trauma

Author(s):  
Bayan Zh. Smagambet ◽  
◽  
Almash A. Tlespayeva ◽  
Ainur B. Musabayeva

The formation of social memory is an important component of the state humanitarian strategy. It acquires special significance in the conditions of postmodern transformations of a transitional society, which directly relate to the functioning of the political system. Thus, the process of democratic transition is becoming an undeniable and peremptory reality. The necessity for liberal political and economic reforms is also not much controversial. With this state of affairs, ideological discussions acquire a retrospective direction, their subject is not the search for development models for the future, but the construction of models for assessing the past. The novelty of the study is determined by the need to assess social participation on the part of both individual and public entities. The authors classify not only the population as social entities but also the carriers of the cultural code, who may belong to extraterritorial groups. The article shows that social memory can also be considered as a method of socio-economic development of a territory, and in order to achieve political objectives by individual groups of capital. The practical significance of the study is determined by the possibility of structuring social memory and building on this basis socio-economic strategies for the development of a sustainable society.

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 389-397
Author(s):  
Meghan J. Dudley ◽  
Jenna Domeischel

ABSTRACTAlthough we, as archaeologists, recognize the value in teaching nonprofessionals about our discipline and the knowledge it generates about the human condition, there are few of these specialists compared to the number of archaeologists practicing today. In this introductory article to the special section titled “Touching the Past to Learn the Past,” we suggest that, because of our unique training as anthropologists and archaeologists, each of us has the potential to contribute to public archaeology education. By remembering our archaeological theory, such as social memory, we can use the artifacts we engage with on a daily basis to bridge the disconnect between what the public hopes to gain from our interactions and what we want to teach them. In this article, we outline our perspective and present an overview of the other three articles in this section that apply this approach in their educational endeavors.


2017 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 18-35 ◽  
Author(s):  
James G Carrier

The idea of moral economy has been increasingly popular in the social sciences over the past decade, given a confusing variety of meanings and sometimes invoked as an empty symbol. This paper begins by describing this state of affairs and some of its undesirable corollaries, which include unthinking invocations of the moral and simplistic views of some sorts of economic activity. Then, referring especially to the work of EP Thompson and James C Scott, this paper proposes a more precise definition of moral economy that roots moral economic activity in the mutual obligations that arise when people transact with each other over the course of time. It thus distinguishes between the moral values that are the context of economic activity and those that arise from the activity itself. The solution that the paper proposes to the confused state of ‘moral economy’ can, therefore, be seen as terminological, as the sub-title suggests, but it is intended to have the substantive benefits of a better approach to economic activity and circulation and a more explicit and thoughtful attention to moral value.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 208-222
Author(s):  
Nadezhda O. Bleich ◽  

The article is devoted to the consideration of the worldview positions of famous educators of the past century regarding the state of school education among Muslims of the North Caucasus region. It is proved that the enlighteners advocated the creation of a new type of national non-class school and the construction of the didactic foundations of the educational process in it. The novelty of the work is that, based on the analysis of the views of the advanced intelligentsia of the region, aimed at understanding the current socio-cultural situation, an attempt was made to scientifically understand the problems and prospects for the development of the Muslim educational system of the past from the point of view of the modern scientific paradigm. The practical significance of the publication lies in expanding the understanding of the system of Mohammedan education in the context of its historical heritage, which will help to comprehend modern problems associated with the reform of general and vocational education in the national Muslim republics.


2014 ◽  
Vol 3 (06) ◽  
pp. 19-34
Author(s):  
Luis Mauricio Escalante Solís ◽  
Carlos David Carrillo Trujillo

Las sociedades comparten un serie de formas a través de las cuales se pueden identificar, conocerse y re-conocerse, sin hacer mucho caso a la especificidad, latitud o cultura que las caracterizan y las unen. Lo primero que comparten es una memoria social, entendida como un significado compartido por los miembros que lo conforman, sin importar su veracidad o autenticidad. El recuerdo es necesario para mantener unido a los integrantes de un grupo, es por ello que se manifiesta constante e intermitentemente en el transcurso de la existencia del grupo social, se vuelve un significado adoptado por dicho colectivo que debe ser manifiesto en las actividades y la cotidianidad.El presente trabajo describe y analiza tres prácticas sociales de conmemoración denominadas alternativas que se realizan en países latinoamericanos (Argentina, Chile y México), se fundamentan sus orígenes, causas sociales y formas de organización, así como sus acciones principales. El eje rector que unifica a estas tres prácticas conmemorativas es el hecho de que reivindican la lucha social y ejemplifican mecanismos contrahegemónicos de demanda social, antes las falencias, omisiones y acciones del Estado. El estudio y el análisis de las conmemoraciones abren la posibilidad de entender distintos usos del pasado. Los eventos históricos construyen un relato que otorga identidad y sentimiento de unidad. Sin embargo, recuperar el pasado a través de la conmemoración no elimina el surgimiento de grupos contrahegemónicos que proponen una reflexión crítica sobre lo sucedido. The societies share a number of ways through which they can identify and meet. However, often irrelevant specifics of culture. It is much more important social memory. Social memory is something that is shared by members of a group regardless of their veracity or authenticity. The memory is needed to hold together the members of a group. Therefore, the memory becomes a meaning adopted by the collective manifested in everyday activities.This paper describes and analyzes three social practices of commemoration taking place in Latin American countries (Argentina, Chile and Mexico), describing their origins, social causes, forms of organization and main actions. The guiding principle that unifies these three commemorative practices is claimed that exemplify the social struggle and counter-hegemonic mechanisms of social demand, given the failures, omissions and actions of the state. The study and analysis of the commemorations open the possibility of understanding different uses of the past. Historical events construct a story that gives identity and togetherness. However, recovering the past, through the commemoration does not eliminate the emergence of counter-hegemonic groups that propose a critical reflection about what happened.


Author(s):  
T.L. Thurston

Archaeologists once viewed super-individual identity as primordial and tied to territorial boundaries, useful for describing an orderly past and creating national or ethnic genealogies. Current research ties identities not to regions, but to groups: complex cultural constructions, expressed in varied yet simultaneous manifestations of bonds with family, lineage, clan, or polity, each with multiple shifting markers. These can involve kinship, status, gender, age, occupation, shared experience, and social memory, in turn impacted by wider sociopolitical, religious, and economic concerns. Between Iron Age groups, cooperation, détente, and conflict were equally likely; trade, travel, and familiarity resulted in material and ideological co-mingling, while still preserving difference, and involved symbolic and practical novelty, as well as continuity with the past. Once, such complexities caused archaeologists to label identity research impossible or unnecessary, but its exclusion often leads to misinterpretation. Fortunately, thoughtful considerations of method, materiality, and scale have resulted in productive new approaches.


1903 ◽  
Vol 49 (204) ◽  
pp. 152-154
Author(s):  
H. M. Bannister

The past year has not been notable for any special events in American psychiatry, though the usual amount of activity has existed. There has been no retrogression, and signs of a better future ahead as regards political control of charitable institutions have appeared in quarters where they are most welcome. In Illinois, for example, where for ten years past politicians have controlled the institutions, recent events have made reform in this regard a political issue, and both parties are, so to speak, tumbling over each other in their zeal to utilise it to their own advantage. The scandal that excited this was not abuse of patients or bad financial management, for neither of these has been proven, but the assessment of employés for political purposes, which has at last aroused the public conscience. The outcome can hardly fail to be good, and we may hope at least for a better state of affairs than existed even before the politicians took control. It is a slow work educating the public as to the political neutrality of hospitals for the insane, but it is being done, and the prospect is that they will before very long be as free from the abuses of partisan politics in Illinois as in any of the older states of the Union. I have spoken of this matter in previous letters, but it is right that I mention it again, for it is the chief fault of our public institutions, and the one that is more than everything else responsible for their failings.


2021 ◽  
Vol 77 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Christina Landman

Nana Sita (1898–1969) is best known for being the secretary of the Transvaal Indian Congress and for his leadership in the passive resistance movement for which he was incarcerated three times. This article focusses specifically on three more times he was sentenced to hard labour for refusing to submit to the Group Areas Act and to leave his (business and) house at 382 Van Der Hoff Street in Hercules, Pretoria. The main sources for telling the story of Nana Sita’s resistance are interviews with his 93-year-old daughter, a chapter written on him by E.S. Reddy and other unpublished material placed at the author’s disposal by Maniben Sita herself. The focus of the article will be on the religious arguments against the Group Areas Act put forward by Nana Sita himself in his defense during his final trial in 1967.Contribution: Historical thought and source interpretation are not limited to historic texts but include social memory in the endeavour of faith seeking understanding. People of faith in South Africa can only come to grips with reality by engaging with the stories of the past, like that of Nana Sita.


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