Theme Leaders: Prof. James Symonds & Prof. Charles Jeurgens

This theme investigates the dynamics of memory and the politics of narrative, broadly conceived, in relation to identity formation and material culture agencies. This includes intergenerational and transnational memory, (post)colonial heritage and traumatic remembrances, migration, borderscapes and diasporic communities, performances, significations and representational technologies, as well as a critical, ontological reflection of cultural processes of intermediation and modes of polycultural encounters in the context of accelerated globalisation, multiculturalism, and transnationalism. The theme seeks to rethink memory narratives and acts in relation to sovereignty and ownership, as well as the uses and abuses of heritage and memory beyond methodological nationalism.