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Forgetful Remembering: A Colonial Life in the Congo

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2011

Johannes Fabian
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Abstract

Social memory, cultural memory, culture as memory, and memory as culture, landscape and memory, places of memory, regimes of memory—all these have been prominent topics in cultural studies, also in anthropology; in this work, attention is usually paid to remembering. Based on several prior inquiries into popular historiography and local regimes of memory, this paper is an attempt to include forgetting in a model of ‘memory work'. What this entails is shown with ethnographic evidence, the recording of a conversation made in Lubumbashi in 1986 with one of the African pioneers of the town. The text in French and Swahili, accompanied by an English translation, is accessible at www2.fmg.uva.nl/lpca.

Résumé

Mémoire sociale, mémoire culturelle, la culture en tant que mémoire et la mémoire en tant que culture, paysage et mémoire, lieux de mémoire, régimes de mémoire—autant de grands the‘mes traités par les études culturelles ou l'anthropologie; ces travaux s'intéressent généralement au souvenir. A partir d'enquêtes sur l'historiographie populaire et les régimes de mémoire locaux, cet article tente d'inclure l'oubli dans un mode‘le de «travail de mémoire». Ce travail repose sur des données ethnographiques, l'enregistrement d'une conversation menée à Lubumbashi en 1986 avec l'un des pionniers africains de la ville. Le texte en français et swahili, accompagné d'une traduction anglaise, est disponible à www2.fmg.uva.nl/lpca.

Type
Research Article
Information
Africa , Volume 73 , Issue 4 , November 2003 , pp. 489 - 504
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 2003

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References

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