Chapter 8: Memory Work

Niamh Stephenson & Susan Kippax

Memory work This chapter is about memory work, a research method that involves the collective analysis of experience. Firstly, we introduce the method by tracing its emergence as part of a distinct Marxist feminist political project, and we indicate the synergies between memory work and social psychological interest in the politics of memory. We distinguish between approaches which cast biography as linear and causal of present day experiences and subjectivities and the ways in which memory workers treat past experiences as contingent and malleable. Secondly, drawing on examples from previous research, we give an account of what the method might actually entail. This account is not intended to be prescriptive, but is offered as a point of departure for researchers who are considering undertaking collective analysis of experience. Thirdly, we consider the ways in which memory work is currently being put to use to address psychological questions. Here, we draw ...

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