Description
Collective memory is an increasingly relevant topic in International Relations (IR), shedding light on issues of bilateral relations, foreign policy, and national identity. However, informed by conventional scalar assumptions, such as level-of-analysis, much of this scholarship ends up overlooking the transnational and translocal potential of particular collective memory representations. Pulling from everyday IR, this paper posits the everyday as an analytical device that disrupts the scalar assumption embedded in collective memory research by (1) densifying sites and agents of memory politics and (2) inviting temporally fleeting memory politics. This introduces a reframing of collective memory as experientially dense fleeting moments that are deeply local and particular yet paradoxically universal. The paper illustrates this by pulling from the context of Japanese post-war peace and war museums in Hiroshima and Okinawa to show how collective war memories represented through the curation of incredibly private and specific life experiences can simultaneously speak to something universally human. This suggests that tendencies which centre the national in collective memory miss their potential to create spaces for empathy and sympathy. Ultimately, this paper argues the everyday approach facilitates a re-thinking of collective memory, and IR more broadly, beyond conventional scalar assumptions.
