ISA Research Committee on Family Research
Seminar: Families and Memories
Oslo, Norway
June 15-17, 2009
Submissions:  October 1, 2008

The CFR seminar 2009 will be held in Oslo, Norway with the theme Families and Memories June 15 to 17, 2009. The seminar is a co-arrangement between Oslo University College and the Center for Studies of Holocaust and Religious Minorities (HL-center) and will take place at Villa Grande on the Bygdøy penincula – the museum area in Oslo. Villa Grande which now hosts the HL-center was the perpetrator Vidkun Quisling’s private estate during the war.

Families construct memories as well as memories constitute families. Each family member creates different stories and biographical narratives. At the same time these stories are related to each other and there is a collectiveness in the memory-making within a family. Memories are crucial both for the development of individual and collective identities, and they are framed by discourses such as national master narratives.

Memories are centered around events experienced from birth to death. The memory is how the person experiences and interprets the events. It can be either shared by other family members or kept secret from others. Memories are reproduced by language and symbolic actions, for instance rituals. Some are constituted around traumatic experiences, others are more related to everyday life.

The memory making happens within social norms. Social norms regulate the person’s definition of the situation and behavior. What is being talked about as well as being silenced are connected to these definitions of situations and the social norms. How are processes of memory-making intialized, negotiated and continued, both on macro- and micro level? There will also be a special session on qualitative methodology.

Deadline for abstracts: October 1. 2008

Deadline for papers: May 1. 2009

Irene Levin
Irene.levin@sam.hio.no
Tel: + 47 22453517 or 47 99228325