An international network of (so far 30) practitioners and researchers using CMW, and people with a general interest in the method and its potential has been established at the end of 2021. It operates as an informal forum for exchange, collaboration, feedback and sharing of ideas.
We have created an email-list for informal communication. As a first project of collaboration an initial discussion of Sara Ahmed’s text about Collective Feelings has been agreed. In five groups we are discussing her text with a view to find shared interests for further engagement, and possibly developing joined projects (including CMW or also other ways of collective work).
The email-list is open for new subscribers. The general information about the list reads:
Collective Memory-Work is a Marxist-Feminist method of learning & research. It relies on a group working together on a topic of shared interest. In contrast to history workshops in which the focus is on engaging with collective (cultural) memory: CMW aims at the collective work with individual memories. In CMW participants write short stories from their own memory. The stories are scrutinised by the group via a detailed text-analysis and a recursive discussion in connection to the topic in question. Working with the stories of all participants in turn can lead to new perspectives and insights. The fun factor in CMW is high, fostering linguistic skills, analytic thinking and argumentation, expanding perspectives on personal and political history. The ultimate aim in CMW is an increased capacity for action – towards a generalised action potency (as in Critical Psychology). This list is meant to organise exchange on applications and adaptations of CMW, and to coordinate projects of CMW across geographical (and disciplinary) boundaries. A specific hope connected to establishing this list is to emancipate the method from its historically developed academic bird-cage, and bring it back into the realms of social movements from where it originally came.
If you would like to join the list, please send a blank email to:
collectivememorywork-subscribe[insert at]lists.riseup.net