Volume 16, Issue 1, Spring 2009
Janet Donohoe
Pages 105-113
Where Were You When ... ?
On the Relationship Between Individual Memory and Collective Memory
This paper argues that private, individual memory is often only made possible through a collectivelhistorical memory that makes itself felt at a most fundamental level of place. It draws upon Husserl's concept of the lifeworld in opposition to Ricoeur's notion of narrative identity. I show that in focusing on narrative, Ricoeur fails to recognize the ways in which the very constitution of the world, of places, becomes the avenue of support for narratives, intersubjectivity, and collective memory. The analysis makes explicit the manner in which experience itself can be collective and is grounded not only in narrative, but in the world, specifically in places in the world that are not private, isolated places, but places of communality. The idea of lifeworld serves as a foundation for collective memory in terms not only of shared experiences, but also in terms of traditions that have been inherited through built places.