Things that stay (and things that don't) : temporality and affect in collective memories of sexuality, bodies, and girlhood

In this chapter, Deleuzian-inspired approaches to temporality and duration are put to work to reconsider how memory operates in the intense collaborative space of collective biography (Davies & Gannon, 2006). We analyse two stories of teenage sexuality, tracing how what endures coheres in the body and travels across bodies in affective flows that disrupt any sense of linear or chronological time and collapses the discrete boundaries of individual subjectivities. Finally, we consider whether the particular technologies of speaking, listening, and writing that we take up in our work may serve to open up some memories and close others down. We conclude by noting the possibility of a continuing collective reticence around the young female body as a sexual, sexualized, and desiring subject.