Memory and Trauma

262 Words2 Pages
According to Gaskell “the main function of collective memory is to conserve the coherence of the social group and to reassure its identity in the present and in the future” (Gaskell 2001). Collective memory determines and is determined by the societies in which it takes its shape, while, often it is used by social classes as they fight for power, their survival and advancement Collective memory responds to the need of all human societies to be perpetuated by transferring their cultural capital to the next generations. Collective memory acts as a mechanism that transfers the knowledge of facts that determine the evolution of a society Every social group has a past, so collective memory intervenes in the group's members present, and thus connecting them with their past, developing their social identity in this way. (Μαντόγλου 2005, 74). Present is not then only shaped by historical narration but also by collective memory, which has its own narrations that are related to the procedure of the formation of identity (Marcus 1998, 96). According to Candau “Memory makes us, we make memory” (Μαντόγλου 2005, 74). Crucially, such images offer a way of imposing an imaginary coherence on the experience of dispersal and fragmentation, which is the history of all enforced diasporas. They do this by representing or 'figuring' Africa as the mother of these different civilisations. This Triangle is, after all, 'centred' in Africa. Africa is the name of the missing term, the great aporia, which lies at the centre of our cultural identity and gives it a meaning which, until recently, it
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