Doctoral Dissertation Research: Local Variations and National Collective Memory

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SES-1003372Kenneth AndrewsRaj GhoshalUniversity of North Carolina-Chapel HillThe dissertation project studies why social movements aimed at commemoration and redress have recently arisen around some instances of long-buried American white-on-black racial violence, while other incidents that appear very similar have not yet yielded such movements. To understand the development and trajectories of these memory movements the co-PI will complete three types of analyses. First, they will a analyze data set of incidents of fatal white-on-black racial violence that occurred between1877-1954 and garnered national news coverage. These data will be used to examine the factors that lead to memory-resurrection of historical racial violence. Second, the investigator will complete a formal qualitative comparative analysis to explain the divergent trajectories that those projects that have emerged have taken. Third, the co-PI will complete interviews and archival work in several Southern states in other to better understand the national rise of interest in segregation-era violence that underlies the emergence of specific projects. This project offers several broad theoretical payoffs. To date, research on the development of collective memory has been dominated by small-sample studies that have identified many potentially important causal forces, but have not investigated the relative importance of, generalizability of, or relationships between these factors more broadly. The project brings a comparative approach to this field, facilitating a more systematic understanding of the factors shaping collective memory. Further, this project helps to fill a notable research gap as one of the few studies to address local variation in the shaping of national collective memory. Broader Impacts. This research will contribute to our understanding of how commemoration movements develop and the different trajectories they take. Further, knowledge of such movements? development will be useful in understanding the potential payoffs and drawbacks of the use of memory as a strategy in promoting civil rights. The project will benefit society by contributing systematic new knowledge about the development and effects of an array of responses to historic mass racial violence.