Projects / Programmes
Collective Memory and Cultural Dynamics
January 1, 2013
- December 31, 2016
| Code |
Science |
Field |
Subfield |
| 6.01.00 |
Humanities |
Historiography |
|
| 6.03.02 |
Humanities |
Anthropology |
Social and cultural anthropology |
| Code |
Science |
Field |
| H000 |
Humanities |
|
| Code |
Science |
Field |
| 6.01 |
Humanities |
History and Archaeology |
| 5.04 |
Social Sciences |
Sociology |
Researchers (21)
Organisations (2)
Abstract
In their work, the programme group focuses on processes of shaping collective memory after 1989 in Slovenia and other Southeast European countries. Particularly, they focus on analysing the formation and change of contemporary memorial practices and the dynamics of cultural processes decidedly marked by these practices. The development of media strategies and technologies uprooted memory management from the domain of the political, although the political has never been so tightly intertwined with the interpretation of the past as it is in post-socialist period. On the other hand, in this period the disappearing boundaries between official and unofficial, public and private, collective and individual displaced the processes of forming and using memory from spaces of authorities and institutions. These were relegated into wider social spaces and distributed among different social subjects that, through processes of authentication, persuasion and negotiation leave important traces in memorial landscape.
This is why the research focus will be on the dynamics of creating and using memory, which includes various actors, different discourses and numerous audiences. Likewise, we will investigate reinterpretations and appropriations of set authority discourses and concepts, particularly in cultural heritage, and also the ways how groups and individuals emphasise and shape, beyond national/dominant practices, their visions of heritage as worthy of memory and the usefulness of the past. Doing this we depart from understanding the dimensions of shaping collective memory cannot be understood without taking into account the entire cultural dynamic and ways subjectivity is set up and politically positioned against narratives of the past.
Significance for science
International humanities are increasingly aware of the need to reflect and systematically interrogate discourses and practices through which collective identities are constructed. The members of the programme team are likewise aware that theoretical and methodological interventions, as well as meticulous analyses of material, must be adapted and innovated to reflect contemporary approaches to researching the past in historiography, anthropology and linguistics, musicology and cultural studies, and specifically in the studies of post-socialism, transitional justice, media memory and technology. Scientific literature on collective memory specifically encourages research of discursive patterns and cultural practices, scientific discourses through which national and other collectivities are formed. It emphasises processuality and internal heterogeneity of concepts such as memory and heritage, and the need to “democratise” the concepts that until recently were shaped exclusively through institutionalised and authoritative discourses. The programme team disseminates its outcomes in Slovenia and its neighbourhood and thus contributes to advancing the knowledge on shaping and uses of memory and heritage in different societies. In this respect, their thoroughly conceived and critical approach to the objects of their research has to be emphasised as the crucial element of highly reflective scientific discourse that enables sovereignty of the humanities. This is why the programme team’s contribution to the development of science is important: the researchers continually seek new problematics and approach them through developing, yet thoroughly deliberated and state-of-the-art methodologies. This is reflected in publications (monographs and edited volumes) with renowned international publishers such as Brill (Luthar, Petrović) and Palgrave Macmillan (Pogačar) and translations: New life of partisan songs (Hofman) published in Serbian with XX. vek, The land between: A history of Slovenia (Luthar, ed.) in Brazil, History of historical thought (Luthar et. al) with Izdavačka knjižarnica Zorana Stojanovića in Serbian, and Yuropa: das jugoslawische Vermächtnis und Zukunftsstrategien in postjugoslawischen Gesellschaften (Petrović) in German with Verbrecher publishing house. It also has to be emphasised that to complement scientific excellence the team devotes special attention to design and presentation of their publications (edited volume Made in YU 2015 won the Best Design in Scientific Literature Award at 32nd Slovenian book faire 2016). In addition, the team is involved in international projects, and they also disseminate the results through invited lectures (Berlin, Rio de Janeiro), through cooperation with Brazilian Foundations of Aleksandre de Gusmao (mutual translation of national histories), the cooperation with the University of Haifa and Wizo College in Haifa (new edition of the Land of Shadows), as well as through collaboration with researchers in South Africa and India. Of special importance are bilateral projects that enable and facilitate exchange of knowledge and enhance regional cooperation. It also has to be noted that the 7FP project GARCIA presented an exquisite opportunity to translate practical research experience and problem solving into developing guidelines to improve research sphere. Thus the team have managed to present and promote programme research outcomes – geographical and temporal primarily focused on Slovenian space and its neighbourhood – to academic and laic publics in different parts of the world.
Significance for the country
The all-encompassing discussion on collective memory (and remembering) marked the latter half of the 20th century and enabled the emergence of ideologically strongly polarised commemorative practices on both sides of divided Europe after 1945. In the aftermath of the Cold War, the discussion was reinvigorated and gained unprecedented influence on the transformation of the self-image of the nations of Eastern, Central and South-eastern Europe. This is largely applicable to Slovenian as well. Therefore, the themes and problematics investigated by the research programme are important for Slovenian society and transcend the relevance of epistemological (self)reflection of historiography, by also encouraging, through the presence in the wider media environments, wider societal thinking about these topics. The members of the team used various channels, including print and electronic publications, radio and television and social media. In this respect, we need to bring to attention the thematic bloc in Dve domovini/Two Homelands (39/2014), monograph Music, politics, affect (Hofman, 2016), edited volume Made in YU 2015 (Petrović in Mlekuž, ur., 2016) and monograph Fičko po Jugoslaviji (Pogačar, 2016). In these works, the authors addressed questions about the presence of the past, the relationship towards the past and uses of the past through different theoretical and methodological approaches and analyses of various practices. In the analyses of cultural industrial and technical heritage, design and objects that marked the everyday life in socialist Yugoslavia, as well as of the uses of popular music, the authors provide an accessible, innovative and polemic approach to studying the past and its meanings in the present. The results were also presented on the radio (Petrović, Pogačar Radio Ars, 2016; Hofman, Radio Ars 2015), TV (Hofman, Luthar Panoptikum: Domoljubje RTVSLO, 2013) and in newspapers (Mihajlović Trbovc, interview, Dnevnik, 26 March 2016). Research results thus invite a reflection not only about research approaches, methodological frameworks and analytical procedures, but through the very selection of research topics and novel approaches to presentation and dissemination of results, bring to the attention of wider scientific and laic publics the questions about the past which are, in Slovenia and elsewhere, still highly relevant. Often uneasy and challenging, yet innovative research reverberates in Slovenia and abroad. Thus it contributes to the promotion of Slovenian humanities, as well as to the higher social awareness about complex processes such as uses of the past and historical myths in politics and historical revisionism. In addition, the research brings to attention the role of memory in the time of tectonic social, political and cultural changes in which each society, Slovenian included, is decidedly implicated in global developments, including in research.
Most important scientific results
Annual report
2013,
2014,
2015,
final report
Most important socioeconomically and culturally relevant results
Annual report
2013,
2014,
2015,
final report
