What is the Phenomenology of Collective Memory?

Abstract This paper provides a phenomenological analysis of collective memory, that is, the shared recollection of past events that are relevant for the identity of a group and its members. Focusing on the phenomenological features of how collective remembering is experienced from the first-person perspective of a person embedded in a social group that has a collectively remembered past, I introduce a distinction between two forms of collective memory: egoic and non-egoic . Egoic collective memory refers to recollections of collectively relevant past events that one lived through, while non-egoic collective memory refers to collectively relevant events one cannot remember episodically, often because they occurred before one’s lifetime. Egoic collective memory is shown to be connected with episodic memory and the intersubjective aspects of perception, involving implicit references to potential co-remembers that constitute the collective quality of those acts of remembering. Additionally, by relating episodic memory to the self-narratives that are constitutive of our self-identity, I argue that egoic collective memories shape the social identity of individuals. Non-egoic collective memory, in contrast, is encountered through narratives, material culture, rituals, and bodily practices, each with distinct phenomenological features. While most of those encounters involve affective and normative tendencies that scaffold the narratively structured remembrance of a collectively relevant past event in connection with one’s own self-narrative and social identity, there are cases where non-egoic collective memory is experienced through a pre-reflective form of body memory that is constitutive of our own personal style and is socioculturally structured.