To which past do we belong? Self and narrative in a Brazilian mnemonic community of former institutionalized children

Bibliographic Data

ID12905586
AuthorsVeridiana Domingos Cordeiro (0000-0001-9666-4386, Universidade de São Paulo, corresponding author)
Year2020
Volume14
Issue5
Pages987-1001
Publication date2020-10-15
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueMemory Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1750-6980 • E-ISSN: 1750-6999
PublisherSAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/1750698020959807
OpenAlexW3097737875
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited24

This article analyzes the processes of remembering and identity formation in a present-day mnemonic community consisting of former inmates of a total government institution for abandoned juveniles in Brazil’s countryside during the Dictatorship Regime. Through the sharing of their remembrances, they mutually shaped their life’s stories in narratives of triumph. For dealing with the empirical data, we acknowledged that memory is a complex phenomenon which must be approached in an interdisciplinary way, considering concepts draw from Cognitive Sciences to Sociology. First, we have collected their remembrances on Social Media, in-depth interviews, and fieldwork over 4 years. Second, we analyzed the dynamics of validation; the network of authorities; and the emotional regimes among the former inmates that determined what is selected and interpreted as collective understandings of the past. We took a relational and processual sociological approach for analyzing how collaborative identity-mnemonic processes are also triggered, supported, and built by the material and cultural surrounding within mnemonic communities. For that, we assume a "distributed memory", and " distributed self" conceptions. Finally, we show how divergent understandings of their past are not validated within their community and consequently dismissed from their narratives of triumph

Aesthetics · Cognitive psychology · Collective identity · Collective memory · Democracy · Dictatorship · Epistemology · Identity (music · Institution · Literature · Mnemonic · Narrative · Political science · Politics · Social science · Sociology · Identity, Memory, and Therapy · Law · Memory, Trauma, and Commemoration · Participatory Visual Research Methods · Psychology · Social Psychology

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