Putting the pieces together: Understandings of memory as assemblage within interaction

Abstract

This article explores memory as a process of assembling fragments of the past and the concept of memory as assemblage. It examines how the lens and language of assemblage are employed in a 3-minute extract from a research interview, which was selected for analysis by the contributors to this special interview. It uses the interviewer’s articulation of memory work by ‘put[ting] all the pieces together’ as the starting point to discuss how memory is co-constructed by two individuals in a specific interaction. Adopting a narratives-in-practice perspective, the micro-analysis looks at (1) the role of the interviewer as a memory agent and co-constructor of memory and (2) how two stories are told in the interview by the participant with a focus on material traces and objects. This article brings the analysis of assembling memory and mnemonic assemblages within the interaction into dialogue with frameworks and theories of assemblage memory studies to demonstrate how they are mobilised in everyday talk.