Conference Remembering Activism: Critical Perspectives on the Memory-Activism Nexus

On 29 to 31 March, the Remembering Activism research project (ReAct) will organise a conference on the afterlives of protests. 

Afterlives

What happens to social movements when their momentum ebbs away, the streets are emptied and campaigning ceases? They become memory. At the core of the Remembering Activism research project at Utrecht University is the claim that protests have afterlives in the stories that are later told about them with the help of texts, images, objects, places; and that the cultural memory of earlier activism informs later movements by shaping actions and expectations, though not necessarily in a linear way. Underlying the study of these dynamics is the fundamental question: how are protest repertoires, ideals, and mobilizing affects transmitted across movements and across generations with the help of media?