Memory is an interpretive action

Abstract

In this essay, I aim to shore up the epistemological foundations of memory studies so that it can more productively fulfill its promise to understand the dynamics of shared meaning-making. I argue for theoretical and, hence, methodological, advancement toward a more precise vocabulary for describing the movement of meaning over time and space and between persons as they engage with resources and each other in order to fix and revise shared interpretations. Drawing on the conceptual vocabulary of narrative, I describe some of the central tenets of this “back to the phenomenon” approach to social memory.