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Introduction In an increasingly mediated society, the importance of discovery and questioning of the mundane becomes vital to ground actions, individually and collectively, in alternative ways. Memory Work is an approach developed to help explore the mundane by problematising the things we take for granted. Through recalling and documenting stories of memories and experiences, participants, researchers and research-subjects are invited to look for variety – in one's own stories as well as in relation to the stories of the others – regarding
memory and remembering, and look at key developments in the analysis and interpretation of oral histories and oral traditions. What is memory? Memory has been represented in Western thought through a wide range of metaphors, as the Dutch psychologist and historian Douwe Draaisma noted: ‘Memory was once a wax tablet, codex or magic slate, then again an abbey or theatre, sometimes a forest, or on other occasions a treasure chest, aviary or warehouse’. More recently new technologies have provided the metaphors, from photography and film to the computer. 1 Understanding
English nationalism, Brexit and the Anglosphere is the first sustained research that examines the inter-relationships between English nationalism, Brexit and the Anglosphere. Much initial analysis of Brexit concentrated on the revolt of those ‘left behind’ by globalisation. English nationalism, Brexit and the Anglosphere analyses the elite project behind Brexit. This project was framed within the political traditions of an expansive English nationalism. Far from being parochial ‘Little Englanders’, elite Brexiteers sought to lessen the rupture of leaving the European Union by suggesting a return to trade and security alliances with ‘true friends’ and ‘traditional allies’ in the Anglosphere. Brexit was thus reassuringly presented as a giant leap into the known. Legitimising this far-reaching change in British and European politics required the re-articulation of a globally oriented Englishness. This politicised Englishness was underpinned by arguments about the United Kingdom’s imperial past and its global future advanced as a critique of its European present. When framing the UK’s EU membership as a European interregnum followed by a global restoration, Brexiteers both invoked and occluded England by asserting the wider categories of belonging that inform contemporary English nationalism.
popular memory. Despite the efforts of some historians and politicians, the memory of the Somme as senseless slaughter in the mud stuck. Traceable to some of the writings of the later war poets and, in particular, a cynicism towards the war from the 1960s associated with Oh What a Lovely War, this memory of the Great War was the one that most closely aligned with the founding myth of European integration. But in contrast to the ‘European’ idea that the two world wars represented a catastrophe followed by renaissance, English memory of the conflict of the
separate and apart … to make a story’ (Ball, 2005 : 158). Ball suggests that in selecting their evidence and writing their accounts of the past, historians choose which points to bring together, what to conceal and what to reveal, and in doing so ‘each one pleats the fabric of history’ (Ball, 2005 : 158). This chapter applies these ideas to memories of clothing collected using oral history methods, where recollections of the past are related through interviews between a historian-researcher and an interviewee with first-hand experience of the period. 1 In oral
of ‘imagined community’, ‘collective memory’, ‘historical consciousness’ and ‘performativity’ help us understand popular engagement with the past. The late twentieth and early twenty-first century has been described as a period of unprecedented interest in remembering the past. In the European context the German cultural critic Andreas Huyssen argued that an ‘obsession with memory’ was clearly evident in the widespread expansion of museums, the building of new memorials and monuments, and the restoration of historic neighbourhoods, and in retro fashions, film
highlighting national differences over the value of that Union. Instead it sought to commemorate a version of what we might now call ‘global Britain’. As Englishness became politicised, the UK Government offered up a memory of Empire to paper over the emerging cracks in the Union state. The years leading up to the Brexit referendum were also years of debates about Britain’s imperial past. The conclusions made about this topic were fairly one-sided: in 2014 59 per cent of respondents to a YouGov poll said that the British Empire was something to be proud of
Mundane methods is an innovative and original collection which will make a distinctive methodological and empirical contribution to research on the everyday. Bringing together a range of interdisciplinary approaches, it provides a practical, hands-on approach for scholars interested in studying the mundane and exploring its potential. Divided into three key themes, this volume explores methods for studying materials and memories, senses and emotions, ,and mobilities and motion, with encounters, relationships, practices, spaces, temporalities and imaginaries cross-cutting throughout. In doing so, it draws on the work of a range of established and up-and-coming scholars researching the everyday, including human geographers, sociologists, anthropologists, urban planners, cartographers and fashion historians. Mundane methods offers a range of truly unique methods – from loitering, to smell mapping, to Memory Work – which promise to embrace and retain the vitality of research into everyday life. With empirical examples, practical tips and exercises, this book will be accessible to a range of audiences interested in making sense of the everyday.
Every piece of historical writing has a theoretical basis on which evidence is selected, filtered, and understood. This book explores the theoretical perspectives and debates that are generally acknowledged to have been the most influential within the university-led practice of history over the past century and a half. It advises readers to bear in mind the following four interlinked themes: context, temporal framework, causation or drivers of change, and subjectivities. The book outlines the principles of empiricism, the founding epistemology of the professional discipline, and explores the ways in which historians have challenged and modified this theory of knowledge over the past century and a half. It then focuses upon three important dimensions of historical materialism in the work of Marxist historians: the dialectical model at the basis of Marx's grand narrative of human history; the adaptations of Marxist theory in Latin America; and the enduring question of class consciousness. The use of psychoanalysis in history, the works of Annales historians and historical sociology is discussed next. The book also examines the influence of two specific approaches that were to be fertile ground for historians: everyday life and symbolic anthropology, and ethnohistory. The roles of narrative, gender history, radical feminism, poststructuralism and postcolonial history are also discussed. Finally, the book outlines the understandings about the nature of memory and remembering, and looks at key developments in the analysis and interpretation of oral histories and oral traditions.
This book guides students in how to construct coherent and powerful essays and
dissertations by demystifying the process of creating an argument and helping
students to develop their critical skills. It covers everything from the
beginning stages of reading critically and keeping notes, through to the final
stages of redrafting and proof-reading. It provides step-by-step instructions in
how to identify, define, connect and contrast sociological concepts and
propositions in order to produce powerful and well-evidenced arguments. Students
are shown how to apply these lessons in essay writing, and to a longer piece of
writing, such as a dissertation, as well as how to solve common problems
experienced in writing, including getting rid of waffle, overcoming writer’s
block and cutting an essay down to its required length. For students wishing to
improve their basic writing skills or to refresh their memories, the book also
gives a clear and concise overview of the most important grammatical rules in
English and how to use them to good effect in writing clear sentences and
sensible paragraphs.
Examples from essays written by sociology students at
leading universities are used throughout the book. These examples are used to
show what students have done well, what could be done better and how to improve
their work using techniques of argument construction. It will be of use to
students studying sociology and related disciplines, such as politics,
anthropology and human geography, as well as for students taking a course which
draws upon sociological writing, such as nursing, social psychology or health
studies.