Rituals of Restorative Resistance: Healing Cultural Trauma and Cultural Amnesia through Cultural Anamnesis and Collective Memory

Using a womanist auto-ethnographic approach, this essay presents an anamnestic remedy for healing cultural trauma and cultural amnesia within the African American community. The essay narrates the creation then infusion of rituals of restorative resistance into the liturgy of a traditional, urban black Baptist Church as a means of resistance, resilience, and restoration. By commemorating the sacrifices of Jesus and enslaved African ancestors in eucharist rituals that are enhanced with sacred songs, readings, and symbols, the liturgy expands the meaning of “Do This in Remembrance of Me” (1 Corinthians 11:24) to “Re-Member Me.” Drawing especially on work of Engelbert Mveng, Delores S. Williams, Barbara A. Holmes, Linda E. Thomas, and JoAnne Marie Terrell, and combining theology and anthropology, the essay describes a hermeneutic of healing within the community. It argues (1) that participation in enactment of rituals of restorative resistance decolonizes minds and deconstructs negative Western characterizations of black and brown bodies and (2) that ritualistic inversion and transformation of painful histories and traumatic stories into narratives and symbols of endurance and faith can re-invent, re-construct, and re-member individuals and communities into whole and healed entities.

Rethinking food, fortune, and misfortune: Reading Wendell Berry in a time of pandemic

The highly efficient food system produced by industrial agriculture is often thought to be one of the great blessings of modern technology. In a time of pandemic, however, this supposed “good fortune” becomes highly problematic. Using the observation from Boethius that “good fortune corrupts, bad fortune instructs,” I turn to the insights gained from reading Wendell Berry during a time of pandemic. Berry is particularly insightful at helping readers understand how one can overcome the cultural amnesia brought about by our loss of connection with food and farming through the cultivation of a renewed imagination, self-control, and a reinvigorated work ethic.

THE ISSUE OF “CULTURAL AMNESIA” IN THE CONTEXT OF DIGITAL CULTURAL HERITAGE MANAGEMENT

The issue of the dual impact of innovative technologies on the sphere of spiritual culture has been considered. On the one hand, the digitalization of cultural values gives hope for their longevity, compared with traditional storage methods. On the other hand, the preservation of cultural heritage is facing new, previously unmet difficulties: the life of digital documents is short due to constant technological improvement and the rapid obsolescence of technology; not all artifacts can be digitized; when knowledge is transmitted through the media, its reduction, vulgarization occurs; finally, the person is changing, for whose sake the preservation of the cultural heritage takes place. Generations possessing clip thinking will have to deal with the fragmented, unsystematic cultural heritage, which is fraught with real cultural amnesia. The new approaches to digital information management and, specifically, digital cultural heritage have been proposed in the article.

Cultural Memory and Gādaliyā Luhār Identity in Gujarat

Focused on the cultural memory of the Gādaliya Luhār community in Gujarat, this article discusses ways in which oral traditions and cultural memory among nomadic groups in India shape the identity of a community under the challenge of cultural amnesia. The Gādaliyā Luhārs claim Rājpūt status and close association with the kings of the Mewar region of Rajasthan, but experienced double cultural amnesia, first under the Mughals and later in the British Empire, which affected their identity. The article seeks to assess the authenticity of the community’s assertions of cultural memory in the light of some historical documents and asks to what extent cultural memory through oral narratives can be taken as valid evidence for understanding the cultural identity of a specific community.