Collective Memory Work on the Topic of Shame at University

Abstract

For a critical reflexive educational science in light of social inequality, this presentation explores experiences at the university using collective memory work (CMW) according to Frigga Haug (1999). The perspectives of a teacher and a student at a university, both part of a research collective, are included to work collaboratively with the feeling of shame.
Social conditions are reflected in memory scenes in many ways - and so the memory scenes written by members of a CMW group offer a starting point for processing and research. The aim of the joint research is also to practice critical reflection as a group. This approach thus offers perspectives for (pedagogical) professionalization processes: the stimulation to work collectively, participatively and to include emotions in the analysis. This will be explored using the work on shame at the university, drawing on Ahmed's (2004, 2014) understanding of collective feelings. The aim here is not on a definition of emotions or shame, Ahmed rather aims at insights on "how do emotions work" (ibid., 25).
In the collective memory work process, the scenes could therefore be questioned as to how the students are collectivized as students - in their individualizing feelings and their coping modes. Inequalities and discrimination can be internalized in the experience of feelings - the experience contributes to the formation of a self-theory (Dausien et al. 2016, 59) and what Ahmed calls the imprint of collective feelings (Ahmed 2014) emerges in the mode of shame. In collective memory work, these isolating situations can be brought back together and be re-articulated.