Memory, ethnography and the method of memory

The fieldwork experience of social anthropology is mediated by memory. The memories of the informants and the researchers own memory recuperate the field partially for the audience—academic or otherwise. This article through disparate sections elaborates the method of memory in doing research. With a brief introduction to collective memory in the sociological tradition this work introduces memory ethnography. External memory—from the act of writing to mnemonic aids that accompany us in the field is ubiquitous to the extent that it has become almost an extension of oneself. The imbrications of memory-technology though reveal the fear of technology taking over the task of memory. The explosion of memory studies triggered through the study of violence is analysed through new forms of commemoration. In placing the seemingly disparate sections I attempt to look at new forms of memory practices contextualising it in and through the various artefacts that it produces.

Publication year:2020

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