Intergenerational memory and trauma. From the micro to the macro, and back again: It is not that easy

Abstract

In this article, I approach Cordonnier’s data from the vantage point of collective memory studies as they are applied to historical reconstruction. Memory studies equip the historian with new interpretative tools for exploring how individuals and communities reconstruct, represent, and narrate their past depending on their socio-cultural context. Jan and Aleida Assmann’s groundbreaking reflections on cultural memory and Maurice Halbwachs’ studies on collective memory are two prominent cases in point. Building on current discussions on micro-histories, multi-scalar memory models, intergenerational and transgenerational trauma, as well as, to some extent, post-memory, I will try to shed light on the interactions between micro, family, and collective narratives as they come to the fore in the conversation between a French-speaking Belgian woman, whose father was a Nazi collaborator during WW2, and the interviewer. I will recognize her own, as well as her family’s, fragmented narrative as the outcome of a traumatic family transmission. This goal shall be achieved by looking at the features of their conversation through the lens of interactional sociolinguistics. I will focus, therefore, on how the woman presents herself in terms of epistemic authority, how she relates to both the interviewer and the family members she mentions in her answers, and how she can transform (or not) pieces of information into consistent stories. Hence, the article highlights the role of the family frameworks as an obstacle to a linear multi-scalar approach, as it is implied by the recently proposed “hourglass model.” I shall argue that when traumatic features intrude the mnemonic chain of family transmission, the transition from the micro to macro level, and back again, is far less easy and coherent than it is usually thought.