Itinerari dell’oblio e della memoria. Tra ricostruzione del passato e prospettive per il futuro

Abstract

This article aims to highlight how the sociology of memory actually corresponds to a sociology of remembering and forgetting. Indeed, if a component of forgetting is always present in memory processes, in order to fully understand the past it is not enough to focus on its visible traces, but it is also necessary to investigate those contents that have been lost, that have not been deposited or that have been prevented from having visibility. In other words, if we normally think of the sociology of memory by assuming memory as remembrance and focusing on its visible traces, we actually have to consider that it simultaneously involves remembering and forgetting; two complementary activities that are not always assumed with adequate balance in sociological analyses of memory phenomena. With this in mind, the article reflects on the different meanings of forgetting and reinterprets the traditions of memory studies in the light of a renewed focus on forgetting issues. Thus, the paths of forgetting in the main paradigms of memory will be traced and discussed: that of the social frameworks of memory, that of the critical-emancipatory paradigm, that of the places of memory, and that of memory work.