SILPAST

The main objective of this project is to study interactions among phenomena relating to memory and patrimony as they are connected to migrations –taken here in their general understanding of population displacements–, as well as foreign borders, inclusion and exclusion processes and representations on migrants. This work is based on cases of immigration and emigration societies, and integrates specific ones such as colonial and postcolonial societies as well as the ones classified as « collapsed ». Firstly, we aim at understanding, how, to what extent and under which conditions the processes of inclusion and discrimination do (or not) yield actions in the fields of memory and patrimony. Secondly, we intend to analyse repercussions of memory initiatives on the way migration and integration in societies. Working on European cases (FR, GER, SPA, ITL, SLOV, UK, GRE, NDL, POR, AUT) in a comparative perspective with other international cases (ISRL, USA, CA), the present project aims at unfolding complex relations among migration, practices and politics of individual and collective memory-making, national and global history, by using a local, national and transnational approach. The challenge here is to bring forth a cumulative and theoretical reflection on the basis of empirical materials, about how political, social and territorial exclusions related to migrations connect with socio-cultural mediations and appropriations of the past, along a double line: analyzing their potential impacts, and taking them as the consequences of discrimination, as well as the transfer on memory and cultural grounds, of struggles, among which some political ones, to gain recognition. Besides these rallying movements, we also intend to pay attention to memory silences and to absences of specific communities in their national histories which constitute, in addition to other marginalization factors – such as access to labor, living spaces, religious affiliation, etc. – indications of discrimination.