Adaptive Collective Memory: Bartlett, Enactivism and Group Identity

This theoretical article argues against recent proposals that memory studies should focus on implicit memory processes and move away from explicit, identity-creating collective memory such as commemorative remembering. Drawing on Bartlett's theory of remembering and contemporary enactivist accounts of cognition, the authors contend that no form of collective memory is independent of identity, and all collective remembering has an implicit aspect. They propose that collective past and group identity are dynamically and reciprocally constructed through habitual interactions within the group. Commemorative remembering, they argue, is better understood as an adaptive, future-oriented becoming rather than a backward-looking, explicit recollection.

Study at a glance

Abstract

It has been recently proposed that memory studies should move beyond focusing on explicit, identity‐creating and backward‐looking forms of collective memory, such as commemorative remembering, and pay more attention to implicit memory processes within social groups. This article demonstrates that, in taking this advice, one would throw the baby out with the bathwater. Revisiting Bartlett's theory of remembering from the perspective of contemporary enactivist accounts of cognition, it argues that no form of collective memory is independent of identity and all forms of collective remembering have an implicit aspect. More specifically, the significance of the collective past and group identity are dynamically and reciprocally constructed through a history of habitual interactions within the group. On this view, group identity is maintained by a highly embodied system of collective interactive schemas that are constantly reactualised in the ever‐changing social, cultural and political environment. It follows that commemorative remembering, as a paradigmatic example of such collective habits, is better described as an adaptive, future‐oriented becoming than merely a backward‐looking, explicit recollection of memories.