The Twentieth Century in European Memory (2024)

In pursuit of expansion, the far-right has been astute in leveraging a simplistic caricature of identity politics, casting it as a threat to old ways of life, an apology for political correctness and an attack freedom of expression. In this context, a reflection on the place of ancestry, memory and identity in contemporary politics seems crucial. The far-right has grown as a parasite upon neoliberal accumulation, which has created diminishing socioeconomic perspectives for large parts of the population. This situation has favoured right-wing populisms that declare themselves to be anti-systemic while they Grafitti | Eça de Queiroz School, Lisbon | anonymous photo

Dissonant Heritages and Memories in Contemporary Europe, 2019

Social History, 2016

Kockel/A Companion to the Anthropology of Europe, 2012

How people variously experience, construct, perform, contest, and understand the past has become the focus of intense interest and extensive ethnographic research in the anthropology of Europe. It is discussed under numerous labels, such as social memory, historical consciousness, commemorative practice, and cultural heritage; and it is bound up with a massive expansion of interest in these and related topics elsewhere in the academy and in popular culture. The field is vast, and this chapter does not attempt a survey. Instead, through selected examples – many of which come from the fieldwork areas in which I have worked myself – it seeks to highlight what I take to be significant developments, themes, debates, and approaches.

Polish Sociological Review, 2012

Muriel Blaive, Christian Gerbel, Thomas Lindenberger (eds.) Clashes in European Memory. The Case of Communist Repression and the Holocaust (European History and Public Spheres, Vol. 2) (Studien Verlag, Innsbruck, 2010) p. 281-288., 2010

Conference report to "New Directions and Challenges in Cultural Memory Studies: Past, Present, Future", 14-15 June 2016, at the GCSC, Justus-Liebig University Gießen

Memory and Representation in Contemporary Europe reflects not only on the persistence of the past as a theme linked to modernity, media and time, but also discusses the politics of memory within a changing Europe. Drawing on the theoretical work of Hannah Arendt, Isaiah Berlin and Zygmunt Bauman, Memory and Representation uses examples from both Germany and Estonia in order to address the multiple layers of Europe's totalitarian past. Through reflecting on the legacy of totalitarianism and the revolutions of 1989, it becomes clear that the issue is less of whether one should remember, but rather how to internalize the various lessons of the past for the future of Europe. Memory and Representation in Contemporary Europe thus offers the reader occasions upon which to take stock of different but overlapping contours of past and present in contemporary Europe.

Aspects of European Political Culture, 2005

European Journal of International Relations, 2009

Introduction to special forum issue of the Anthropological Journal of European Cultures