Time and memory: On the narrative mediation of historical subjectivity

Abstract

This article offers a theoretical discussion of the importance of the problem of time in social research. Our aim is to contribute to the theory of the “entanglement” of socio-genetic and biographical processes by proposing a framework for understanding how speakers, through their narratives, articulate different biographical, social and historical time scales. Basing ourselves on a case study of an autobiographical discourse, we discuss the specific discursive forms which speakers employ to embed different scales of time in the same discourse. We mainly draw on the interpretations of this subject by Bajtin, Bergson, Deleuze, and Halbwachs. We argue that the unfolding of time can be understood with the help of Nietzsche’s concept of the return, and point out some implications of the theorizing of memory.