Articulations of Memory: Mediation and the Making of Mnemo-Regions

Abstract

The chapter exemplifies an approach to memory outside the framework of the nation state, centered on the acts of “articulation” (Hall; De Cesari and Rigney) that create “unscripted linkages” (Rothberg) between disconnected mnemonic groups. The focus on “acts of articulation” reveals the cultural mechanisms whereby individuals and groups come into imagined relation with each other. This allows us to think of regions not in terms of bounded territories but as the outcome of cultural practices of recollection and their cross-border spread through media networks. The chapter proposes four types of articulation: integrative narration, multidirectional narration, hetero-remembrance, and translation. It then takes Wikipedia as a case study in the articulations of memory within a digital environment.