Embodiment and living memorials: The affective labour of remembering the 2005 London bombings

Allen, M.J. and Brown, S.D. (2011) Embodiment and living memorials: The affective labour of remembering the 2005 London bombings. Memory Studies, 4(3), pp. 312-327. (doi: 10.1177/1750698011402574)

Abstract

The 2005 London bombings have been the subject of numerous commemorative practices, ranging from public silence to the Hyde Park memorial. In this article we discuss a less well-studied commemorative practice that we term, following Esther Hyman, a ‘living memorial’. This type of commemoration differs from other memorials in that it functions by making connections at the level of life rather than that of symbols. It constitutes an ‘affect economy’ in which the affective labour of participants weaves thick relations of care and emotion that accomplish a salvation of the commemorated person or event. Drawing on interview data from people who have created and maintained living memorials, we show the centrality of the body and embodied acts of caring as central to how commemoration is enacted. Such commemoration may ultimately involve the erasure of the story of what is commemorated, but not the embodied relations in which the remembered lives inhere directly.

• Item Type: Articles
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Allen, Dr Matthew
• Authors: Allen, M.J., and Brown, S.D.
• College/School: College of Social Sciences > Adam Smith Business School > Management
• Journal Name: Memory Studies
• ISSN: 1750-6980
• ISSN (Online): 1750-6999