Small Grant for Exploratory Research: Collective Forgetting of Historical Violence

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This SGER proposal investigates mechanisms of collective forgetting in the aftermath of the U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Relations Committee (FRC) resolution to identify Ottoman killing of Armenians (1915-1917) a case of "genocide". The theoretical context for the proposal is a larger program of research that applies a cultural psychology perspective to the study of memory and identity. Because people do not have direct memory of centuries-old events, they necessarily construct a sense of collective identity via social representations of history. However, prevailing representations of history are not unbiased reflections of objectively recorded events, but instead constitute celebratory constructions of the past that promote forgetting of collective misdeeds.In the first phase of the study, the research team will travel to Turkey to survey participants regarding experience of Turkish identity, policy-relevant attitudes, and understanding of historical events pertaining to the FRC resolution. Of particular interest will be the relationship between national identification, use of interpretative denial mechanisms (e.g., euphemistic naming) and endorsement of nationalistic policy. The second phase will compare collective forgetting as a function of identity relevance and representation of violence. The final phase involves a follow-up study in Turkey to explore how collective forgetting operates over time. This work contributes to the social, cognitive, and cultural understanding of memory as a dynamic collective construction.