XIX ISA World Congress of Sociology (July 15-21, 2018)

670

Doing Memory of Violence in Images and Biographical Narrations

RC38 Biography and Society (host committee)

Language: English

The session wants to highlight the question of doing memory of violence twofold: Firstly, the session asks for historical-social and institutional conditions, which structure doing memory processes in the sense that they open spaces for memories, limit opportunities to remember or even prevent memories. The borders of these spaces are amongst others defined by established rules of speaking about violence. Secondly, in biography research crucial studies on memory processes are carried out in the last decades. However, because verbal narrations have been the main data source other forms of memory, especially images, stayed rather in the background. Therefore, the session is interested in papers which deal with the question of doing memory of violence in verbal narrations as well as in images. Further we invite papers which question the significance of images and verbal narrations for biographical mnemonic processes. The following questions will be discussed: To what extent and how does violence become an issue in biographical narrations and/or in and through images? Which forms of violence can be narrated and/or visualized and which not? Are there any dominant (collective) narrations, which structure biographical narrations about experienced violence? In which way does the materiality of doing memory structure the memory process? In which way does the materiality influence the manner how violence is addressed as an issue in biographical memory processes?