Migrant Memories and Temporality

Extract

Social memory does not exist only as a collection of remembrances that a group recognizes as theirs. Much more than simple forms of expression of memory, the more or less ritualized situations it is involved in serve to express its continuity. Rituals are an attempt to preserve the cultural identity of a people, or a section of a people. It is clear that the social imaginary more often than not tends to give them a very big part to play. And so rituals appear to be an expression of memory that should be represented, or presented again, as synonymous with history. This imaginary sets up memory as something absolute: it must know everything. Symbolically confused with history, memory may even, in this imaginary, make it possible for people to find their place in the world. Memory and history may then be the elements making up reason. In losing their memory - or their history - they would lose the ability to distinguish and discern.