This article describes the basic framework of the field of sociology of memory. It offers an overview of themes and issues around (1) the social aspects of individual memory; (2) collective memories; and (3) cultural attitudes towards memory. Such issues are relevant today from the perspective of sociology of time, and the author demonstrates some theoretical problems that arise and some directions in which they can be further developed. But such issues are also relevant in social discourse and in shaping individual and collective identities: their comprehension helps to investigate continuity and discontinuity in social life, as well as current conflicts and cultural ties.

Memory and Sociology Themes and Issues

The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview and characterisation of the rejection of the European Constitutional Treaty by a majority of voters in France's referendum held on 29 May 2005. Whilst pointing to the salience of political discontent with the incumbent right-wing government and some elements of the longstanding crisis in French national party politics, the analysis places the emphasis on the central role played by social issues in the referendum, the transposition at the European level of the mechanism of the evaluation by voters of traditional parties' performances and responsiveness to the country's social malaise and the unilateral termination by a majority of left-wing voters of the ‘social welfare and economic growth’ confidence pact that they had made with their national political elites on the occasion of the Maastricht referendum in 1992.

https://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-00090233/document

Beyond France's 2005 referendum on the European constitutional treaty: Second-order model, anti-establishment attitudes and the end of the alternative European utopia

Radical left parties (RLP) have been significant actors in many Western European party systems since the expansion of mass democracy. In some cases, they have been very relevant forces in terms of popular support. Despite this fact, they have not received a great deal of attention in past decades from a comparative perspective. Through examination of the role of an important set of factors, this article provides, for the first time, a cross-national empirical account of the variation in voting for RLPs across Western Europe, based on individual-level data. It evaluates the effect of key socio-demographic and attitudinal individual-level variables on the RLP vote. The findings point to the continuing relevance of some social and political factors traditionally associated with votes for RLPs, and to the relevance of attitudinal variables.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S1755773914000368

Support for radical left parties in Western Europe: social background, ideology and political orientations

For several centuries Cape Town has accommodated a great variety of musical genres which have usually been associated with specific population groups living in and around the city. Musical styles and genres produced in Cape Town have therefore been assigned an "identity" which is first and foremost social. This volume tries to question the relationship established between musical styles and genres, and social - in this case pseudo-racial - identities. In Sounding the Cape, Denis-Constant Martin recomposes and examines through the theoretical prism of creolisation the history of music in Cape Town, deploying analytical tools borrowed from the most recent studies of identity configurations. He demonstrates that musical creation in the Mother City, and in South Africa, has always been nurtured by contacts, exchanges and innovations made possible by exchanges, whatever the efforts made by racist powers to separate and divide people according to their origin. Musicians interviewed at the dawn of the 21st century confirm that mixture and blending characterise all Cape Town's musics. They also emphasise the importance of a rhythmic pattern particular to Cape Town, the ghoema beat, whose origins are obviously mixed. The study of music demonstrates that the history of Cape Town, and of South Africa as a whole, undeniably fostered creole societies. Yet, twenty years after the collapse of apartheid, these societies are still divided along lines that combine economic factors and "racial" categorisations. Martin concludes that, were music given a greater importance in educational and cultural policies, it could contribute to fighting these divisions, and promote the notion of a nation that, in spite of the violence of racism and apartheid, has managed to invent a unique common culture.

https://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-00875502/document

Sounding the Cape Music, Identity and Politics in South Africa

This paper explores borders as conceptual entities that are performed. Rather than assume that the meaning of borders (or ‘border-ness’) holds steady while everything else changes, the paper considers borders as forms of ‘performation’ in Callon's terms. It also argues that border is always about relations as much as separation, and that, combined with historically shifting theories of border, suggests that border as such cannot be taken for granted in understanding the difference borders make to peoples' lives. The paper considers differences in the way border has been performed in the Aegean in order to explore shifting theories of border in this region. It particularly focuses on the events leading up to the 1923 exchange of populations between Greece and Turkey, and more recent European-led attempts to control illegal migration across the Aegean, in exploring the interplay between border performed as place as opposed to border performed as abstract line.

PERFORMING BORDER IN THE AEGEAN: On relocating political, economic and social relations

Usages et mésusages de la notion de mémoire

Le Fil Rouge, Sociologie de la mémoire communiste

The identity of any nation-state is inextricably linked with its borders and frontiers. Borders connect nations and sustain notions of social cohesion. Yet they are also the sites of division, fragmentation and political conflict. This ambitious study encompasses North Africa, the Middle East, and South and South East Europe to examine the emergence of state borders and polarised identities in the Mediterranean. The authors look at the impact of political boundaries upon the region, along with pressures from European and economic integration, the resurgence of nationalism, and refugee and security concerns. The authors explore the politics of memory, and ask whether echoes from the imperial past - Ottoman and colonial - could provide the basis for conflict resolution, region-building and economic integration.

Marie-Claire Lavabre

Papers

Usages et mésusages de la notion de mémoire

Le Fil Rouge, Sociologie de la mémoire communiste

Mediterranean Frontiers: Borders, Conflict and Memory in a Transnational World

Maurice Halbwachs et la sociologie de la mémoire

Usages du passé, usages de la mémoire