The Effects of Memory

Abstract

The fourth chapter of this book seeks to understand why memory policies continue to flourish in spite of their limits. Their indirect, relational effects are clearly visible here. Our hypothesis is that the impact and efficacy of these policies can be felt in the way they reverberate through a multitude of situations in different social spheres (some of which include memory professionals), and that this is what gives memory policies their strength. Calls for remembrance, and for the past to never be repeated, are only effective if they have similar echoes in different social spheres, if they exist within a network of powers. In this chapter, we do not look at the historical content that these policies are intended to transmit but rather at the range of social relations that they actually produce. This chapter takes seriously the idea of a governmentality of memory.