Dancing through time: A methodological exploration of embodied memories

Abstract

This article responds to an absence of memory studies research methodologies for exploring embodied memories, including its form and content, the lived practices it involves, and its embeddedness in wider socio-political discourses. While conceptualisations of embodiment are central in the field of memory studies, its methodological consequences remain under-developed. We are proposing dance-based methods as having significant potential to address alternative ways of knowing and relating to the past. Drawing on empirical work on both professional and social dance among British Bangladeshi women in London, conducted as part of the 5-year research project Migrant Memory and the Postcolonial Imagination, we found embodied remembering to be a social form of doing that can serve to create, preserve and negotiate shared pasts.