The Worlds of Childhood Memory

Abstract

As always, autoethnography, life-writing, memory studies, and contemporary history will prompt individuals to think about the different kinds of interconnectedness that exists in the variety of human experience. As it is such a personal account, we are drawn to examine how those personal accounts might resonate with our own ‘known lives.’ On many occasions, our world views are shaped by immediate circumstances, as well as by the everyday experiences in our daily practices. As a social scientist, one always needs to have a skeptical position in order to try to examine and understand the larger megaprocesses that our small individual experiences are woven into. Thinking about a ‘world gone by’ or a situation in which ‘all that was solid melt(ed) into air’ means that analyses of realized socialism can search for the similarities and differences through just such an examination of everyday experience. And this is precisely what memory studies (in its broadest sense), and as such this volume, brings us. I have tried to summarize some of my initial thoughts on this volume, and my humble contribution is quite cursory due to space constraints, as there is much more to be said both about this rich work, as well as future endeavors along these same lines of inquiry.