Reasons to remember : public memorials to lived experiences of loss in Australia, 1985-2015
- Publication Type:
- Thesis
- Issue Date:
- 2017
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This dissertation is a study of public memorials that commemorate lived experiences of loss and trauma. The study is focussed on the Australian context but draws links between this and the broader transnational field of memory work related to loss and trauma. I argue that such memorials need to be considered as a distinct and new genre of memorialisation which has come into being through a cultural shift that privileges experience. They are influenced by post-war discourses of trauma, human rights and transitional justice. The dissertation traces a timelines of the emergence of these public memorials in the public sphere in Australia since the mid 1980s, first as community art projects and later as formal memorial projects driven by grassroots groups. Since the mid 2000s, governments at all levels have begun to support or initiate the creation of memorials to lived experiences of loss.
My thesis explores four different way memorials are expected to do cultural ‘work’ in the present. First, public memorials are used by marginalised counter-publics to claim a space in the national story. Second, they are used to create spaces where survivors of human rights abuses can have their loss acknowledged and be given space to grieve. Third, they are used as acts of witnessing, to speak back into the dominant public sphere. Finally, and more recently, memorials have been created by governments as part of the widespread adoption of transitional justice mechanisms. Such memorials are seen as acts of symbolic reparation and are used to respond to claims of past human rights abuse on the part of the state. Seven case studies give an in-depth focus on particular memorial projects in relation to the theme explored in the preceding chapter.
This research project grew out of the realisation that a number of marginalised groups within Australian society were working towards or considering the value, for them, of a public memorial that would commemorate a difficult part of their shared history. I have sought to develop a research project that values the experience of those who have a direct involvement in the painful events commemorated, as well as exploring the meanings created by the memorial objects on their own terms. This work contributes to the growing body of literature on memory work in settler-colonial and transitional justice settings.
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