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The acquisition of memory by interview questioning: Holocaust re-membering as category-bound activity

UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH FLORIDA, USA, mbartesa{at}cas.usf.edu

Sheryl Perlmutter Bowen

VILLANOVA UNIVERSITY, USA, sheryl.bowen{at}villanova.edu

In this discourse analysis of how memory acquires and is acquired in interview exchanges, we investigate remembering as a category-bound activity, both a tensional and collaborative process of moral ratification of `survivor' as membership category. We propose the term re-membering to mean piecing together possible versions of survivor experiences in talk; these versions, offered by respondents and elicited by interviewers through questioning strategies, are epistemic claims to acquire the Holocaust as memory, or institutional History. We explore the accounting dynamic of interviewer and respondent, the relationship of ownership between survivors and memory, and the duties and moral obligations of the category `Holocaust survivor' that can be shown through the interviews of survivors and their adult daughters.

Key Words: epistemic rights • Holocaust • interview • membership categorization • memory • questioning

Discourse Studies, Vol. 11, No. 2, 223-243 (2009)
DOI: 10.1177/1461445608100945


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