Children’S Agency in Remembering: An Intergenerational Approach to Social Memory

Abstract

Although the relation between individual and collective memory has been long established, analysis of individual memories is hardly existent within the social sciences outside of psychoanalysis and developmental psychology. Working to overcome this gap, the author argues that children’s lives are heavily influenced by the structures of collective memory they are born into, available to children through the complex system of inter- and intragenerational relationships from very early on.

Drawing on the concepts of generation (Karl Mannheim), generagency (Madelaine Leonard), and collective memory (Maurice Halbwachs), the author establishes that the practise of intergeneratonal exchange of memories within the family provides a way to influence and overcome the limiting of children’s agency by social stratification determined by age.

Citation

Yakovlyeva, V. (2020), "Children’S Agency in Remembering: An Intergenerational Approach to Social Memory", Frankel, S., McNamee, S. and Bass, L.E. (Ed.) Bringing Children Back into the Family: Relationality, Connectedness and Home (Sociological Studies of Children and Youth, Vol. 27), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 57-71. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1537-466120200000027005