Memory and Social Movements: An Introduction

Abstract

Social movements rely on collective memories to assert claims, mobilize supporters and legitimize their political visions. Social movements also help to shape collective memories. This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book demonstrates that social movements as civil society actors were important in shaping public discourses about the past and thus have become, time and again, carriers of cultural forms of memory and forgetting. It draws out some of the challenges and promises of combining memory studies and social movement. The book looks at the long-term changes to German memory politics vis-à-vis its National Socialist past. It highlights the importance of organized memory activism in sustaining momentum behind the agenda of changing the paradigm of how to remember German fascism. The book presents some case studies that highlights how fruitful bringing together of social movement studies and memory studies can be in a diversity of different ways.