A community of flood memories living with(in) the riverine landscape in ayutthaya 2

I argue that the majority of these works are influenced in some ways by Halbwachs’ 1992 concept of collective memory and Nora’s 1989 influential lieux de memoire.. 2.2 The geographies of

2 Literature Review

Everything has already been said, just not yet by everyone - Morris King Udall

2.1 Overview

Since St Augustine’s musings on memory and time, memory is often conceived as a mental record where traces of the past are stored and occasionally called forth, or remembered (Jedlowski, 2001; Manning et al, 2013) However, this notion of memory has been challenged by social scientists – geographers included Arguably, the liberation of memory from its ‘mental encasement’ (Casey, 2000: 145)

is a by-product of the undeniable affiliations between memory and space As Schnapp’s (1006: 24) emphatic metaphor states, ‘memory needs earth in order to survive’ Yet, spaces are not simply stores of memory, but opportunities (Crang & Travlou, 2001) This chapter reviews works by geographers highlighting the various connections between memory and space, with a focus on environmental hazards such as earthquakes, tsunamis and floods I argue that the majority of these works are influenced in some ways by Halbwachs’ (1992) concept of collective memory and

Nora’s (1989) influential lieux de memoire While this body of work has thrived – and

is still thriving – I identify two lacunae in the literature they have engendered Firstly, there is an over-emphasis on commemoration by the nation and its associated politics This has resulted in the neglect of the everyday, banal, but no less important, forms of memory Secondly, these works mostly ‘rest on a discursive understanding

of memory’ (Della Dora, 2008: 218) and consequently, consigned the past as a radical other to the present (Nora, 1989)

Next, I posit that recent developments in cultural geography – the turn towards practices and the material, or the ‘more-than-representational’ – have provided us with new theoretical tools to address the aforementioned issues Relatedly, understandings of ‘landscape’ have since departed from the iconographic and representational propounded by the ‘new’ cultural geographers of the 1980/90s

Often drawing on works by Tim Ingold (1993; 2000), many geographers are now paying due attention to the activities within the landscape as it unfolds More than a

static object apprehended by the eye and mind, the landscape is a lived

phenomenon through which various (more-than-human) subjectivities unfold, intersect and interact (see Ingold, 1993; Della Dora, 2007; Wylie, 2007) This chapter argues that the lived landscape is an active archive of the past, present and future, where memory is central and alive I conclude the chapter with a conceptual framework which considers the central role of memory for those living with(in) the riverine landscape of Ayutthaya

2.2 The geographies of memory (…thus far)

While the memory literature is replete with spatial metaphors, most

contradictory nature of space, place and scale, nor examine the ways that social memory is spatially constituted

Till (2003), Places of Memory, pp 291

Karen Till is right to claim that memory studies as a discipline is riddled with spatial metaphors - scholars have long likened memories to cities (Gilloch, 1996), architecture (Eco, 1986), maps and cartography (Brokmeier, 2010; Radstone & Schwarz, 2010; Murakami, 2012) Moving beyond metaphors and motivated in part

by Maurice Halbwachs’ (1980: 140) claim that ‘every collective memory unfolds within a spatial framework’, geographers have convincingly argued that all memories have a geography as they are often constructed and located through particular sites and social environments (Halbwachs, 1992; McDowell, 2009; Alderman & Inwood, 2013) Thus, memories are never truly personal – instead they are narratives and stories trimmed, transmitted and learned by the collective through the spatial and the material (Halbwachs, 1992) Simpson and de Alwis (2008), for instance, write about the ruins of Adhoi, Gujarat following an earthquake in 2001 The silence and ruinous aspect of the village reminds viewers of the devastation and loss brought about by

the earthquake Through this, the disaster is remembered in the Gujarati – and also the national - collective consciousness via a specific representation of the past anchored on the material ruins of Adhoi Subsequently, this memory may be further institutionalized and transmitted through social interactions (Jedlowski, 2001) Therefore, to understand the genesis and articulation of collective memory, we have

to pay attention to the ‘space we occupy, traverse and have continual access to, or can at any time reconstruct in thought and imagination’ (Halbwachs, 1980: 140) In other words, places and landscapes are enduring material anchors to the transient nature of distant memories caught in the flow of time

These spatial anchors, however, are not inert and the sites of memory are not simply historical references and signposts Nora (1989), inspired by Halbwachs,

argues that spatial anchors must be purposefully consecrated and symbolically

scripted for remembering Thus, sites of memory – lieux de memoire - are inscribed with specific narratives based on the needs of the present They are ‘consciously situated to connect or compete with existing nodes of collective remembering’ (N C

Johnson, 1995: 55) The deliberately constructed lieux de memoire are defined in opposition to the spontaneous, unreflexive environments of memory - milieux de

memoire - where memory was unselfconsciously and meaningfully experienced,

lived and practiced (Nora, 1989) With the onset of modernity, Nora (1989: 12; Till, 2003) asserts that the latter no longer exists, and all we have are ‘shells on the shore’

- superficial external signs and scaffoldings of deritualized memory that have come to

represent the past In turn, the lieux de memoire possess normative power as they

shape and cast legitimacy upon certain representations of the past, and at the same time reaffirm the veracity of those narratives (Hoelscher, 2003; Della Dora, 2008; Alderman & Inwood, 2013)

Despite the problematic binaries and rigid teleology - culminating in the ‘death

of true memory’ – which underpin Nora’s writings (see Schwarz, 2010; Rothberg,

2010), the lieux de memoire is highly influential in geography’s memory work The socially-constructed nature of the lieux de memoire is congruent with the way cultural

geographers have perceived the power of landscape since the 1980s Landscapes are since perceived as visual representations of space imbued with symbolic intentions and ideologies; what they reveal and/or obscure, thus, legitimize and reproduce the very power structures and hierarchies that produced them (see Cosgrove, 1985; Cosgrove & Jackson, 1987; Duncan & Duncan, 1988; D Mitchell, 1996; Cresswell, 2003) Likewise, geographers have always maintained that sites of memory are distinctly social and political projects, through which certain facets of ‘the past’ are manipulated and rendered ‘common sense’ by elites Furthermore, these selective ‘pasts’ are also often invested with emotional and moral meanings in order

to bolster nationalistic ideologies and needs of the present (N C Johnson, 2005; Edensor, 2005a; Rose-Redwood et al, 2008; Jenks, 2008; Miller & Bunnell, 2011; see also Nora, 1989)

Nora’s and Halbwachs’ influence are especially pronounced when we

consider geography’s primary analytical approach to memory Imprints of lieux de

memoire are observed as geographers critically interrogate normative iconographic

forms and commemorative stages, notably ‘monuments, memorials and museums’ (Miller & Bunnell, 2011:4; see also K Mitchell, 2003; Till, 2003; N C Johnson, 2005; Legg, 2007; Dwyer & Alderman, 2008) Geographers question the essentializing power of these iconographic forms in obscuring and forgetting a plethora of other memories and narratives, and the social and historical processes that constructed them Thus, generally, geographers seek to unpack the problematic relations perpetuated and embedded within these mnemonic landscapes and institutions Returning to the monumental ruins of Adhoi, Simpson and de Alwis (2008: 9) deconstruct the ruins as romantic ‘illusions’ of Gujarati devastation and loss – Adhoi was an atypical village of summer homes of wealthy residents from Mumbai; they

were mostly uninhabited at the time of the earthquake The poorer, inhabited villages were reduced to rubble while Adhoi was left standing The destruction of Adhoi was the result of the pillaging of building materials after the earthquake, as reinforcements and compensations were difficult to come by – a facet of the Gujarat earthquake story silenced and under-represented

Milan Kundera has famously claimed that ‘the struggle of man against power

is the struggle of memory against forgetting’ (1982: 4) Despite the normative nature

of the lieux de memoire, and their attempts to exclude and ‘remove the clutter’ of

alternative memories, the latter do not remain silenced (Edensor, 2005a: 831; Legg, 2007) The values assigned to the sites of memory are open to contestations and these sites are often subjected to re-interpretations by various groups Therefore, memory is overtly political not only as an aforementioned tool of dominance, but also

as a vehicle of struggle and resistance More often than not, questions of cultural identities and group consciousness underlie the struggle to remember and to be remembered (Jenks, 2008; McDowell, 2009; Erll, 2011) This is especially the case for large-scale traumatic events – such as armed conflicts or environmental disasters

- which ‘tend to leave an imprint on group consciousness and eventually translate into a dimension of cultural identity’ (Miller & Bunnell, 2011: 9) Thus, geographers are also interested in these alternative memories – or ‘counter-memories’ – which

subvert the normative narratives of the lieux de memoire

Griffith’s (2014) work on the connections between the deliberate flooding of the Tryweryn Valley In north Wales and Welsh nationalism exemplifies such political struggle for memory The valley was flooded by the Liverpool Corporation in 1965 in order to supply water and electricity to Liverpool The community of Capel Celyn was inundated by the resultant reservoir, and its inhabitants displaced The event and the reservoir are generally remembered as ‘necessary’ for ‘the progress of the nation, the United Kingdom’ (Cunningham, 2007: 629) However, beyond the placid façade

of the reservoir, subversive and informal modes of memorial – especially graffiti and poetry – for inundated villages alters the landscape, ensuring that the loss of the

Welsh communities is not forgotten Over time, these physical and symbolic lieux de

memoire for the flooding of Tryweryn became emblems of Welsh nationalism against

the ‘perceived oppression of the Welsh people by English and British institutions’ (Griffiths, 2014: 452) Such geographies of memory are very much part of human geography’s radical and moral traditions These researchers are committed to exposing injustice and uneven power relations Apart from understanding the world, they seek to change it and work towards ‘socially-just futures’ (see Till, 2008: 109; Margalit, 2004; Rose-Redwood et al, 2008; Alderman & Inwood, 2013) While the ethical commitments of this body of work are indeed commendable, the scholarship

is not without flaws and shortcomings which may limit its ethical agenda

2.3 Lacunae in the current geographies of memory

Firstly, Nora’s lieux de memoire explicitly engages memory as

commemoration at scale of the nation, and many geographers have also adopted the

nation as their analytical ‘collectives’ (see Azaryahu & Golan, 2004; Legg, 2005) Understandably, with some exceptions (see section 2.4), memory work in geography has largely conformed to this conceptual scale and model According to Hoelscher &

Alderman (2004: 348), the Politics of memory is typified by their intersection with the

‘politics of national identity, racial conflict, public planning and historic conservation, social mobilization and activism and the heritage tourism industry’ Empirical research related to commemorations and memorials sites in specific cities or regions, and/or of specific social groups, often draw on broader questions and politics related

to national identities (see N C Johnson, 1995; Hanna et al, 2004; Desforges & Maddern, 2004; Till, 2005; Jenks, 2008) Aware of the dangers of romanticizing counter-memories (Legg, 2005), geographical work on memory transcends the binaries of ‘elite’ and ‘popular’ memory to recognize the various internal conflicts,

micropolitics and negotiations among planners and advocates of sites of memory and counter-memory (see Forest & J Johnson, 2002; Hoelscher & Alderman, 2004; Fenster, 2004; Legg, 2007) However, these writings have largely remained subsumed under the framework and scale of memorials and commemorations by, and of, the nation Furthermore, despite some geographers’ - notably Tolia-Kelly’s (see 2004; 2010; see also Hoelscher & Alderman, 2004: 352; Atkinson, 2007) –

attempts to recalibrate the focus from iconic and commemorative lieux de memoire to

everyday, material modes of memory, issues around ‘national identity’ are continuously reified Therefore, it is safe to say that many geographers have been persistently entrenched in the search for the ways ‘national’ identities are constantly (re)characterized and (re)fashioned by various politicized processes of memory-place-making

This methodological nationalism and the related emphasis on commemoration in geography’s memory work reflect the state of memory studies outside the discipline (della Dora, 2008) I share the recent concerns raised against the seemingly ‘stencil-like’ and additive nature of memory-work: ‘we add yet another site of memory; we address yet another historical injustice’ (Erll, 2010: 4; also see Liddington & Ditchfield, 2005; O Jones & Garde-Hansen, 2012) Caught in this epistemological rut, geographers may be unable to engage the multiple potentials of memory beyond the limited, though important, fields of territorial, ethnic/racial and national collectives and formal realms of commemoration Jones and Garde-Hansen (2012: 22-3; also in Lorimer, 2005: 87) allude to this problem as they write about the apparent neglect of the ‘unresolved remainders of memory’ These are the seemingly insignificant, transitory memories of everyday life in the home, the neighbourhood and other spaces of social life, which are no less imperative in co-constituting various identities and intersubjectivities Additionally, with the boundedness of the commemorative framework, it is almost impossible to draw attention to spontaneity

and excess, which so often accompany memory and remembering Liisa Malkki (1997: 91) has written about the spontaneous collectives – or ‘accidental communities of memory’ – which emerges from accidental sharings of memory and transitory experiences Such spontaneous collectives bring together people from different, ‘more publicly consecrated collectives’ like the nation or a certain social class, who in the ordinary courses of their lives will probably never meet (Malkki, 1997: 92) While these memories are not publicly commemorated and memorialized, they can powerfully (re)shape identities, and also affect ways of living with(in) the landscape

The commemorative framework do not, and cannot, address issues of spontaneity because it is predicated upon the assumption that unmediated and lived memories no longer exist in modern societies (Nora, 1989; Kritzman, 1996) This is the second flaw in geography’s memory work As memory takes on a symbolic, or discursive, order, it becomes overly presentist Geographers motivated by Nora’s work operate on the assumption that memory has little connections with the past; instead, it is motivated and created primarily by concerns and politics of the present (Nora, 1996; Schwarz, 2010; Forest & J Johnson, 2002; Dwyer, 2004; Dwyer & Alderman, 2008) Therefore, the past is defined as a ‘radical other’, to be represented and narrativized by actors of the present Memory of this nature is not

invisible as a monument’ – these pedagogical memories ‘cast in stone’ and articulated through nationalistic parades and ceremonies are arguably divorced from the routines of everyday life Yet, when we consider memories beyond commemoration, memories are constantly in an un/conscious state of enactment They are embedded in the repetitive gestures and unreflexive routines of our mundane every day, and often coalesce in nondescript architectures of the home, neighbourhood and city Also, monuments of historic or aesthetic importance do not

always trigger the same ‘deeply-felt emotional response’ as memories in and of modest homes and neighbourhoods (da Costa Meyer, 2009: 179) Hence, memories

are never simply represented or cast in stone, but are also practiced in everyday life,

and form the fabric of human life (Sturken, 1997; O Jones, 2011; O Jones & Garde-Hansen, 2012) In this way, the past is not simply a ‘distant, immaterial realm’ which has come to pass (Deleuze, 1988: 56) Instead, it continues to be spontaneously lived and practiced in the present

2.4 ‘More-than-representational’ memories in a lived landscape

At the heart of the ‘more-than-representational’ critique of representational approaches is the ‘retreat from practice… creating deadening effects on an otherwise active world’ (Cadman, 2009: 356; also see Lorimer, 2005) The representationalism

of the (no longer) ’new’ cultural geographies supposedly rendered inert all that ought

to be most lively (M Rose, 2002; Lorimer, 2005) Relatedly, the ‘new’ cultural geography’s engagement of landscape as visual representation or text is also increasingly questioned by a loosely defined coalition of ‘more-than-representational’ geographers The ‘landscape as text’ approach offers a nuanced understanding of the act of reading any landscape, and the possibility of critically deconstructing meanings and uneven power relations which underlie the landscape However, this perspective overemphasizes the power to subvert the meaning of the landscape through its reading without necessarily providing a space to change the landscape itself through practices (N C Johnson, 2005) Geographers have also questioned the detachment that the ‘landscape as text’ perspective entails Mitch Rose (2002: 461) likens this detachment to ‘pyramids… babel-like summits design[ed] to lift us out

of the on-goingness of life.’ It is ironic (and perhaps a little nạve) to believe that the way to understand our creative involvements in the world is through removing ourselves from that world (Ingold, 1995) Thus, there have been calls to rescale our positions from the without to the within: to approach the landscape as a lived

phenomenon in order to apprehend and appreciate its rhythms, fluxes and becoming (Ingold, 1993; Cresswell, 2003; della Dora, 2009) The same critique can be extended to the majority of memory work geographers have been doing thus far Recently, memory work in geography has been (re)invigorated by emerging interests

in the ‘performative and relational aspects of remembrance’ alongside the more conventional investigations into the spatial politics of heritage and memorialisation (DeSilvey, 2010: 492; della Dora, 2008) Informed by the ‘more-than-representational’ turn in cultural geography, these works question and uncover the more-than-human (Edensor, 2005a; DeSilvey, 2007), more-than-textual (della Dora, 2008; 2010; Crang

& Travlou, 2001) and multi-sensual (Anderson, 2004) aspects of memory While these works continue to explore the roles of landscape and material objects in terms

of memory and remembering (see O Jones, 2011; O Jones & Garde-Hansen, 2012), geographers influenced by the ‘more-than-representational’ turn are keenly

questioning the ways in which memories are enacted through the material specificities and unfolding of the landscape, instead of being merely anchored on the

landscape

‘More-than-representational’ geographers – despite being situated in a field

of differences – are united in the belief that what constitutes the ‘social’ and the

‘political’ need to be disrupted and further expanded (Lorimer, 2005) With this comes the (re)focus on locally-situated interventions in the world In other words, the seemingly unremarkable everyday is reconfigured as significant and productive Thus, the ‘social’ takes shape and gains expression in shared experiences, everyday routines, transitory and yet affective encounters and embodied movements, through their ‘flow, fluidity and repetition’ (Cresswell, 2003: 270; Lorimer, 2005; Waterton, 2013: 67) Lorimer (2005: 84) further argues that by paying due attention to these, geographers can move beyond the ‘established academic habit of striving to uncover meanings and values that apparently await our discovery, interpretation, judgment