Politics of memory

Politics of memory is a concept used to describe the organisation of collective memory by political agents. The terminology addresses the political means by which events are remembered and recorded, or discarded. Eventually, politics of memory may determine the way history is written and passed on. Memories are also influenced by cultural forces, e.g. popular culture, as well as social norms. It has also been connected with the construction of identity.

The two sides in the conflict in Cyprus maintain widely divergent and contrasting memories of the events that split the island. The term selective memory is applied by psychologists to people suffering from head injuries who retain some memories, but have amnesia about others. Societal trauma, such as war, seems to have a similar effect. Recollections that are shaped out of a phenomenon common to many countries traumatized by war and repression, may be remembered in radically different ways by people who experienced similar events.

The selectivity may also serve a political purpose, for example to justify the claims of one group over a competing group. Cyprus is a poignant case for this phenomenon. The longstanding conflict on the island reflects deep roots in the "motherlands" of the Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot peoples.

Lauren A. Rivera (Harvard University) studies how states “manage reputation-damaging” events “on a global stage”. Rivera decided to conduct a study on the state of Croatia in order to determine how the government represented its country to international audiences following the wars of Yugoslavian secession. She hypothesized that the main catalyst for this change in international opinion was due to cultural reframing. This empirical study included textual analyses of travel brochures printed by the Croatian government (study 1), interviews with 34 tourism professionals from the Croatian government (study 2), and observations of popular attractions during the peak of Croatia’s tourism season (study 3). Study 1 and study 3 came to the conclusion that the nation’s new cultural identity draws parallels with western societies while creating “strong symbolic boundaries between Croatia and its Eastern neighbors” (Rivera). Tourism professionals explain this shift in culture as an attempt to make the country of Croatia seem like a more stable place for Western investment and travel (study 2).

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