National surveys investigating the ways in which the public connects with the past have identified the significant role played by family memories and stories. While historians have largely been dismissive of this dimension of historical consciousness, sociologists and psychologists perceive these stories to be essential elements in human development and the creation of social identity. In this study, a cohort of twelve multigenerational families in the southwest of England recounted their family stories, the shared narrative patterns and themes of which challenge existing paradigms of family memory and historical consciousness.
Despite significant research into the meaning and operation of historical consciousness, there is still much to be understood about its hereditary function. For example, what does historical inheritance look like? How does it influence our individual and collective historical consciousnesses? And, just as critically, what happens to historical consciousness when history is deliberately withheld, when that inheritance is suspended or severed? As a way into some of these questions about passing on the past, this paper draws on a qualitative research project into historical consciousness in Australia to explore how so-called ‘ordinary people’ see themselves as part of a historical narrative. It reveals that historical inheritance is critical to our historical consciousness, and it notes the profound impact of forgetting on participants, raising important questions about the role of ‘silence’ and ‘absence’ in the formation of historical consciousness.
In this elaboration we will discuss about the main motives to work for the unity paradigm. The methodological reflections in this article are limited only to the remarks of a methodological status of the two disciplines belonging to social sciences: economics and psychology.