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- Convenors:
-
Ulla Savolainen
(University of Helsinki)
Kirsti Jõesalu (University of Tartu)
Elo-Hanna Seljamaa (University of Tartu)
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- Format:
- Panel
Short Abstract:
This panel invites participants to explore various forms of memory activism, asking what cultural researchers can bring to this growing field of inquiry, what the study of social movements has to offer these disciplines, and what are the lessons in unwriting that activists can teach scholars.
Long Abstract:
Struggles and social movements surrounding history, questions of ownership and appropriation of tradition, and difficult cultural heritage have received increasing scholarly attention in several interdisciplinary research fields in recent years. Often characterized by both globally circulating themes, aesthetics, and modes of action, as well as local concerns, these diverse forms of action, recently epitomized as “memory activism” (e.g. Gutman & Wüstenberg 2023), aim to generate mnemonic change and redress lingering injustices caused by historical wrongs, epistemic ignorance, and hegemonic (national/imperial) memory cultures and heritages – or to prevent change. As disciplines with a special focus on the vernacular interplay between institutional and grassroots actors and expressions in cultural reproduction, folklore studies, ethnology, and anthropology are of obvious relevance to the study of contemporary social movements and memory activism. This panel examines various forms of memory activism and related phenomena, inviting participants to explore and to rethink what cultural researchers can bring to this growing field of inquiry, what the study of social movements has to offer these disciplines, and what are the lessons that activists can teach scholars. Papers with theoretical, methodological, empirical, or case-study approaches are encouraged to consider, among others, the role of folklorists/ethnologists as activists and/or researchers; the role of folklore/heritage in memory activism; negotiations of conflicting temporal ideologies, perceptions of and claims to history against the background of unfolding transnational tensions; the role of social media in social movements; the perils and gains of studying social movements.
This Panel has so far received 6 paper proposal(s).
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