INDIVIDUAL REMEMBERING AND 'COLLECTIVE MEMORY' THEORETICAL PRESUPPOSITIONS AND CONTEMPORARY DEBATES
Over the past decade cultural historians have focussed upon 'collective memory' drawing upon the original theories of sociologist Maurice Halbwachs. The conceptualisation of memory in this body of work either conflates collective and individual memory, or relegates the latter to a position of insignificance. Meanwhile oral historians are increasingly focusing upon the ways in which individual recollections fit (often unconscious) cultural scripts or mental templates. As a consequence, the interpretative theories of oral history and collective memory studies are converging. The paper argues that if oral historians reject the capacity of individuals to engage critically and constructively with inherited ideas and beliefs, the field has made a paradigmatic shift from the concerns and values that led to its growth and development in the 1960s.