Race, Ethnicity, Indigenous Peoples and Politics

L15(b) - Micro-paper Roundtable: Memory Studies in Political Science: Methodologies and Research Areas

Date: Jun 6 | Time: 08:45am to 10:15am | Location: SWING 308

Chair/Président/Présidente : Sevan Beukian (University of Alberta)

Memory Studies in Political Science: Methodologies and Research Areas:

Matt James (University of Victoria)
Juliet Johnson (McGill University)
Kate Korycki (Queen's University)
Robert Imre (University of Tampere)
Joanna R. Quinn (Western University)
Anil Ramachandran Menon (University of Michigan)
Jenny Wüstenberg (York University)

Abstract: Memory Studies has increasingly gained more ground as a field in the social sciences. Scholarly engagement have presented various thematic focuses, case studies, methodologies of research, and more critical analyses around how memory and trauma are part of the national identity constructions. The richness of the field has however developed almost as a separate discussion, without much contact with other areas of political science. Collective memory studies can help to analyze the discursive shifts in politics, and offer scholars tools to look for the counter-narratives and counter-discourses by examining the trauma and resilience of oppressed, marginalized, and silenced individuals and groups. Each panelist in the roundtable is invited to explain their research, the field’s conversation with political science, challenges in the research, and methodologies of research. This roundtable will bring forth a discussion of these issues from the perspective of how and in what ways can memory and trauma studies enhance the study of national identity, nationalism, and collective discourses. How can memory studies offer spaces of theoretical and empirical possibilities to analyze the current political context through critical lenses? Who is talking about these? How can the traumatic experiences shape the field of political science to more effectively create relevant knowledge? What methodologies can help to (re)think about the connections between memory studies and political science? The roundtable will gather speakers who will address some of the questions mentioned above from their own distinct disciplinary/interdisciplinary framework and methodological considerations in order to discuss the different and diverse ways in which