Social psychology of memory: Places and policies of memory

The aim of the social psychology of memory is to understand and intervene in the processes of collective memory from a discursive and performative approach, looking both at the narrations about the past and at the uses of public space in the actions of recalling. This paper presents the conceptual path that the Social Psychology of Memory Team at the University of Chile has developed during its research and action trajectory. Drawing on the multiple studies conducted, this paper shows how incorporating the performative dimension of memory has involved a theoretical and methodological emphasis on the study of commemoration, places of memory and policies on memories. The article also shows certain shifts in research, which have gone from focusing on the study of the figure of the victim to considering "other memories", those constructed by non-victim subjects, bearing in mind the differences between the generations that did not experience the dictatorship in Chile and those that did. © 2013 by Psykhe.