Provincializing memory studies: The insistence of the 'here-now'. (October 2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Collins, Felicity; Healy, Chris; Radstone, Susannah
• Other Names: Vollmeyer Johanna guest-editor.; Ferrándiz Francisco guest-editor.; Hristova Marije guest-editor.
• Is Part Of: Memory studies. Volume 13:Number 5(2020)
• Page Start: 848
• Page End: 860
• Publication Date: 2020-10
• Subjects: deep time -- here-now -- modern Aboriginality -- settler colonial memory cultures -- Indigenous belonging; Memory -- Periodicals; Memory -- Periodicals; 153.1205
• DOI: 10.1177/1750698020946415
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1750-6980

Abstract

This essay responds to Astrid Erll's question about what it might mean to do memory studies in different parts of the world. We offer a response from the perspective of three researchers based in Australia. Focused on a season-opening gala performance, a photographic series, a site-specific protest, and a film that takes a choir from Central Australia to Germany, the essay tracks the emergence, in culture, of something we term the 'here-now'. The essay argues that this 'here-now' belongs neither to historical temporality's linear time-line, nor to the cosmology of an unsullied Indigenous culture – and cannot easily be addressed in the language of memory studies. Taking our lead from four case studies, we try to find words for what it is that the 'here-now' makes present, as it emerges in the artworks and events we discuss. We find that the 'here-now's' ordering of place/time insistently evokes a yet-to-be realized Australia, while prompting recognition of the hard truths that still stand in its way.