BIE_F_05 Divided (in) Memories: The Role of Cultures of Remembrance for Social Cohesion

Objective / Research Questions

Without memories, social interaction becomes difficult or impossible. Even if this statement seems trivial at first, it raises a number of questions at a societal level, some of which have considerable implications: What are the cornerstones of a German culture of remembrance and where do cracks run through Germans’ collective memory? What is commemorated in our society and in what way? Moreover, what effects do shared memories as well as divided memories have? Shared memories can create or strengthen cohesion, for instance when events are remembered that were experienced together or when we simply remember collectively. But memories can also weaken or dissolve cohesion, for instance when conflicts arise about what should be remembered or whether it should be remembered at all. The project deals with these and other questions that can be bundled together in the complex “remembrance and cohesion”. It understands the culture of remembrance specifically (although not exclusively) in the context of Germany’s National Socialist past and thus refers directly to forms of collective narratives as well as the affective dimension of cohesion. Thus, every form of collective memory is always to be understood as an interpretation of what makes us a society and what common historical reference points we share. Such narratives are always controversial, not least because of their political implications, and can therefore create social cohesion, on the one hand, and threaten it, on the other hand, if no consensus is reached or if it is called into question. The analysis therefore focuses on intrafamilial as well as interpersonal and local as well as societal processes of negotiation and conflict over remembrance and their effects on cohesion.

With regard to RISC’s orientation towards cooperation, there is close collaboration with the project JEN_F_02. Both projects provide answers to the common guiding question of the role of memory and remembrance and an identity-forming common past in Germany for social cohesion, set against the backdrop of Germany’s National Socialist history. While the project JEN_F_02 focuses on the macro-structural level of political culture and contextualizes the forms of remembering, especially of National Socialism, from a historical-cultural perspective, the present project approaches the central question with a social psychological perspective at the level of the individual, family, and local contexts and is conceived as an empirical analysis of the present. Part four of the JEN_F_02 project in particular, but also, if possible, previous work steps, is therefore planned to be closely interlinked between the two projects.

Thematic reference to social cohesion

Shared memories or unity with regard to a “common” history can promote social cohesion at the national level both directly (e.g. in the form of an actively shared culture of remembrance representing a concrete form of social practice of cohesion) and indirectly (e.g. in the form of an identity-forming common past and thus a common point of reference for collective narratives). The project thus considers social cohesion as a dependent variable and is intended to make an empirical-analytical contribution to the question of how cohesion can be strengthened or weakened through memory and remembrance. Even at the local level, shared memory on a small scale (e.g. neighbourhood related) can strengthen cohesion through what is experienced together and through what is remembered together. Finally, in interpersonal or family contexts, shared narratives (e.g. about one’s own family history as a specific expression of the affective dimension of social cohesion) and shared traditions and rituals of remembrance (as social practices) can strengthen cohesion.