DIGSUM researcher Samuel Merrill and Professor Ann Rigney of Utrecht University have recently co-edited a special issue of the the SAGE Memory Studies Journal called Remembering Activism: Explorations in the memory-activism nexus (17:5).
The special issue contains an editorial, twelve research articles and a closing commentary from an interdisciplinary team of authors that together present an array of case studies which regularly address the influence of digital media and technology. These cases cover contemporary and historical activist causes from across the political spectrum (from climate rebels to anti-vaxxers) and with ties to different communities (from diaspora groups to occupiers) and different generations (from 68 student protestors to those of Gen Z). The special issue also reveals the influence that several other actors besides activists have within the memory-activism. Whether these be police or security agencies, market actors, cultural forms and media affordances, or the algorithms that influence the workings of social media platforms and databases, it is clear that activist memory work operates in a complex field of different forces.
The special issue was co-edited by Samuel Merrill and Ann Rigney as part of a collaboration between Utrecht University’s ReAct Project and Umeå University’s Department of Sociology and DIGSUM.
The special issue can be found [here].