DisTerrMem — Memory Across Borders: Dealing with the Legacy of Disputed Territories

Results in brief

Memory Across Borders: Dealing with the Legacy of Disputed Territories

DisTerrMem (Memory Across Borders) brought together an international and interdisciplinary team to explore how competing memories of disputed territories can be best managed. Working across three key regions - Eastern Europe, South Asia and the South Caucasus - the seven partners from Poland, Armenia, Lithuania, the UK and Pakistan explored the roles of four key actors - civil society, cultural practitioners, nation states and regional organisations - in managing such memories. Over the last decades, cosmopolitan approaches advocating 'shared' narratives in areas of longstanding conflicts have often failed since a consensus about disputed territories has proven too difficult to achieve. In recent years, civil society groups have increasingly challenged dominant representations of the national community, seeking to establish multiple stories and alternative commemorative practices. DisTerrMem examined how adopting an agonistic approach to memory provides new opportunities for managing competing memories in non-conflictual ways. It brought together interdisciplinary and cross-sectoral expertise to move the debate beyond the European frame to develop an alternative theoretical and methodological framework to antagonism, identify examples of agonistic memory management and promote examples of best practice at multiple levels, sharing these with policymakers, civil society organizations and cultural practitioners in range of contexts. The project’s key objectives were the following: a. Strengthen and enhance the cooperation and knowledge sharing within the research partnership, through the development of a programme of knowledge exchange activities; b. Bring together complementary expertise and knowledge through international mobility, in order to boost research capacity among participating organisations, progressing understanding of mechanisms for the management of competing memories of disputed territories; c. Improve the skillsets and career opportunities of participating staff members; d. Enhance partners’ awareness of the research cultures in different countries and different sectors; e. Develop a portfolio of impact activities, to disseminate methods, to facilitate the collaborative creation of theoretically and methodologically innovative research outputs, and make these widely available for a range of relevant audiences.

Data: CORDIS, © European Union

Project objective

DisTerrMem is an integrated programme of training and mobility opportunities for researchers and non-academic partners, who will co-create an innovative transnational, interdisciplinary and multi-level approach to the pressing problem of managing competing memories of disputed territories across borders. Taking an interdisciplinary collaborative approach, the planned secondments and training will share and extend interdisciplinary knowledge. Methods to share knowledge will include cross-disciplinary seminar series, the co-production of literature reviews and a shared methodological and theoretical framework, the organisation of internal conferences and summer schools, the production of jointly-authored academic publications, as well as an international conference.These activities will facilitate the co-creation of a new theoretical and methodological approach to a significant problem. Dealing with competing and often antagonistic memories of disputed territory remains a pressing challenge not just within the EU, but globally. However, the solution to such tensions is not necessarily the formulation of a ‘shared’ memory of such territories, which in any case may prove difficult to achieve. As a recent report of the European Parliament (2013: 5-6) notes, while historical memory is already disputed at the national level, beyond the national frame ‘the perception of the past proves all the more heterogeneous and problems for having a collective memory or even defining common historical landmarks are multiplied.’ Researchers on this project will receive the training necessary for them to address the challenge of managing competing memories of disputed territories in three key regions (Europe, South Asia and the South Caucasus), producing insights into best practice that will be useful to policymakers at the national and supranational level, to civil society groups and to cultural practitioners.

Original text from CORDIS.

Participants

UNIVERSITY OF BATH · BATHCoordinatorUnited Kingdom
EDUCATIONAL AND CULTURAL BRIDGES · YerevanArmenia
FORMAN CHRISTIAN COLLEGE · LahorePakistan
FUNDACJA POGRANICZE · SEJNYPoland
LIETUVOS DIDZIOSIOS KUNIGAIKSTYSTES INSTITUTAS · KaunasLithuania
NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE REPUBLIC OF ARMENIA · YerevanArmenia
UNIWERSYTET WARSZAWSKI · WarszawaPoland

DisTerrMem · Memory Across Borders: Dealing with the Legacy of Disputed Territories

Results in brief

Memory Across Borders: Dealing with the Legacy of Disputed Territories

Project objective

Participants

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