Transculturality and the Eco-Logic of Memory

Abstract This article asks how memory studies might use the conceptual insights gained during its “third transcultural phase” for the challenges of its “fourth phase” – heralded in this Special Issue as a phase of research invested in questions about memory and the environment. It argues that memory is fundamentally “eco-logical”, and that the relational dynamics explored in research on transcultural memory can enable an understanding of the more-than-human in collective memory. The article offers a brief introduction to the field of memory studies and its transcultural turn around 2010. It traces the emergence of transcultural studies as a field of enquiry and its roots in research on colonialism, postcolonialism, and cultural globalisation. It discusses new developments in memory studies and considers their transcultural and broader eco-logical dimensions. Finally, the article distinguishes between “the relationality of the remembered”, “relational remembering”, and “mnemonic relationality” as conceptual building blocks for eco-logical mnemohistories.