(preliminary abstract – work in progress)
Making sense of the past, present and future – time and collaborative knowledge production
Memory work is a way to study how human longings and belongings are invested in bodily and affective domains and how they influence interpretation and relations. When we turn towards memories from our own lives (re)connections with affective intensities in relation to situations and others seem to be the driver, which pushes forward the stories we tell. Memory work therefore is a substantive and exceptionally engaging collaborative methodology that brings affective dimensions of meaning making into here and now qualitative research in productive ways.
As a feminist methodology, the primary aim of memory work as a collaborative process of analysis is to discover the social dimensions of what we often take to be unique expressions of our own personal experiences. The ultimate aim being that the insights we produce collaboratively will open up new perspectives to feed into processes of change, as research is not only a matter of understanding our world, but also of developing answers to the question of ‘what we should do’. Through an example of a memory work on the topic “longing for long gone feminist activism” I will show how memory work is a powerful way to collectively produce a number of insights about the ways in which we make sense of the past, (re)create our social (be)longings and even open up to ‘becoming other’. I briefly suggest that nostalgia produced through the retrieving of memories can produce affective (re)encounters with a capacity to motivate fruitful dialogues about commitment, meaningfulness and political urgencies in the present. I also wish to enter at discussion with colleagues about time constraints and its effects on power relations in the process of writing up and disseminating topics and analytical points which grew out the a collective endeavor.