Making memory work for feminist theory

Anna Reading

    Research output: Chapter in Book / Conference PaperChapter

    Abstract

    The chapter opens with a reconsideration of earlier feminist thinkers and their theorizations of the significance of the past, as well as the work of those who sought to use memory as a tool for women’s liberation from oppression. The chapter then provides a discussion of key turning points, problematics and paradigms within feminist theories of memory and work on gender in the field of Memory Studies that offer important insights for our understanding of gender, especially in terms of culture and representation. These have emerged from a concern with memory and gender in a range of disciplines that includes psychoanalysis and psychology, sociology, literary and historical studies, and media and cultural studies. I then appraise the development of feminist memory studies from within gender and women’s studies, as well signalling the importance of work that has come out of the development of non-Western ideas of memory that offer new conceptualizations and approaches to feminist theory. Finally, the chapter examines an emergent theoretical trend that is seeking to understand how gender and memory are articulated trans-nationally through the dynamics of globalization and digitization. Memory Studies, like Gender Studies, has developed as an interdisciplinary field that includes a variety of analytical, conceptual and methodological approaches. The study and analysis of memory has been an important component of much theoretical work throughout the twentieth century, with the academic study of memory over the past twenty years having grown especially out of media and cultural studies, holocaust studies, psychology, literary studies, sociology and history. Studies of gender within Memory Studies and the development of what may be termed feminist memory studies, it is argued in this chapter, extend the conceptualization of gender around issues of representation beyond and across the conventional categories of text, production and consumption. In addition, emergent work on gender and memory addresses the ways in which gender is being articulated within new dynamics of digital media technologies and globalization. The chapter begins with early feminist theories of memory; it then shows how memory work can offer complex understandings and innovative methodogical approaches, as well as difficulties in the understanding of gender in relation to both individual and collective trauma such as sexual abuse and genocide. Conceptually, Memory Studies offers not just a view of how feminists can understand who is left out of history, for what reasons and when, but also includes explanations for broader continuities and/or transformations in patriarchy at the social, political, cultural and literary levels through its varied conceptualizations of ‘collective memory’. Since no single chapter can include all that one would like, the focus here is on the key conceptualizations of traumatic memory, social memory, collective memory, historical, literary and cultural memory, and post-colonial and digital memory to reveal what these in particular can offer that is distinct for feminist theorization and research. The chapter ends with a consideration of how new directions within Memory Studies arising out of post-colonial theory, as well as digital media theory, proffer new theoretical approaches to globalization and digitization that seek to capture the movements and trajectories of memory in relation to gender.
    Original languageEnglish
    Title of host publicationThe Sage Handbook of Feminist Theory
    EditorsMary Evans, Clare Hemmings, Marsha Henry, Hazel Johnstone, Sumi Madhok, Ania Plomien, Sadie Wearing
    Place of PublicationU.K.
    PublisherSage
    Pages196-214
    Number of pages19
    ISBN (Electronic)9781473907348
    ISBN (Print)9781446252413
    Publication statusPublished - 2014

    Keywords

    • feminist theory
    • memory
    • collective memory
    • liberty

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