The public uses of memory: between a past future, an abstent future and a unsuspected development

Abstract

The uses of memory, always from a determined present, are explained by specific conjunctures and relations of forcé, which are interwoven with the lack of expectations, and led to a search for a past that was safe, deformed and simplified. The impact of the “study of memory” cannot be separated from that of the end of history, posed as a naturalization of neoliberalism and the sociopolitical impact of 1989. It is interesting to question what is memory, clarify its formats, its remittance to a past, and it refracting a present.