Intimate Relationships

Abstract

Keightley and Pickering address a lacuna in contemporary research on collective memory by exploring the role of intimate relationships in processes of remembering. Using a rich body of ethnographic data, they illustrate how remembering intimate relationships and ruptures in them forges a sense of belonging with others over time, and how intimate relationships and changes within them shape the remembering process. They specifically attend to the ways in which relationship breakdowns are negotiated and made meaningful through the remembering process, contributing to a renewed sense of self-identity in relation to others over time. They consider cases where this is both successful and unsuccessful in orienting remembering subjects not only to the past but also to the future. The overall import of the chapter is consideration of the role of the mnemonic imagination in remembering well.