Venue: Per Kirkeby Auditorium
Chair: Hans Lauge Hansen, Aarhus University
| 10.05-10.20 | Hans Lauge Hansen, Aarhus University, Denmark: The cultural memory of the civil war and social trust in Spain |
| 10.20-10.35 | Anna Cento Bull, University of Bath, England: Populism, Antagonism and Memory in the Italian Second Republic |
| 10.35-10.50 | Sara Dybris McQuaid, Aarhus University, Denmark: Trust and Traditions in Transitions |
| 10.50-11.05 | Discussion |
| 11.05-11.20 | Marie Andreasen and Leonardo Cecchini, Aarhus University, Denmark: From Conciliation to Reconciliation? Story-telling of Victims of the “Years of Lead” in Italy: In Search of Justice and Truth in Spite of the State |
| 11.20-11.35 | Francesco Caviglia, Aarhus University, Denmark: Teaching critical literacy in Italy, with trust as the ghost in the wardrobe |
| 11.35-11.50 | Hans Vium Mikkelsen, Rector, Teologisk Pædagogisk Center, Denmark: Trust as a part of the reconciliation process |
| 11.50-12.05 | Discussion |
The purpose of this session is to discuss the relation between the ways in which cultural memories of difficult and violents pasts are being processed and the degree of social cohesion and trust in different, contemporary European countries. It is a hypothesis that the contemporary lack of mutual trust, political legitimacy and social cohesion within the European Union, as well as within certain member states, is intimately related to the ways in which the memory of the violent conflicts of the 20th century have been constructed, processed and transmitted, both by political elites and by popular memory movements. The Cosmopolitan memory discourses, engendered by the Holocaust memory and dominant during the last 15-20 years, have typically focussed on the situation of the individual victim and the violation of Human Rights. This focus tends to depolitize social issues and individualize political problems, and this kind of depoliticized memory discourse influences the way in which national stereotypes might be produced or reproduced, former conflicts reopened, and ethnic, cultural and social segregation (re)created in contemporary Europe. In a situation where populist movements all over Europe are using the conflicts of the past as an argument for nationalist solutions, the real social and political conflicts of interest, which in the past paved the way for civil wars, genocides, dictatorial repression and political violence, must be identified and adressed as such, as social and political questions. If not, we will not be able to identify the contemporary mechanisms of discrimination and social segregation, and to approach the basic cultural challenges that Europe is facing.
