Introduction

Duncan Bell

pp. 1-29

in: Duncan Bell (ed), Memory, trauma and world politics, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2006

Abstract

Memory seems impossible to escape. During the closing decades of the twentieth century it emerged as "a cultural obsession of monumental proportions across the globe", a trend that looks set to continue for the foreseeable future.³ Questions of historical memory have played a pivotal role in the rise of identity politics, most notably in the United States, and in fuelling the tragic proliferation of civil and ethnic conflicts around the world. They have been at the forefront of debates over transitional justice, post-conflict reconstruction, the legitimacy of political violence, the legacy of the Holocaust and a plethora of other processes and practices. These social and political trends have been mirrored in academia where the study of memory has swept a number of disciplines, especially history, sociology, anthropology and cultural studies. Indeed the "boom" has echoed so widely that memory has emerged as a key "organising principle of scholarly [and] artistic work".⁴ Yet the analysis of memory has not played a substantial role in the academic study of international relations.⁵ The aim of this book is, as a consequence, to examine some of the theoretical approaches essential for elucidating and interrogating the multifarious roles played by the "memory" of traumatic events (broadly defined) in shaping the contours of contemporary global politics. It does so by drawing on various traditions of social and political thought, utilizing these to shed light on diverse examples from around the world, and highlighting patterns of continuity and change across cultures and polities.