2006/04/01 by Shannon A. Novak, Lars Rodseth · 18 citations
Social Sciences · Psychology · #Latin American and Latino Studies #Indigenous Health, Education, and Rights #Memory, Trauma, and Commemoration #Narrative #Collective memory #Politics #Sociology #Traumatic memories #History #Gender studies #Political science #Psychology #Law #Art #Literature #Cognitive psychology
paper · doi:10.3998/jar.0521004.0062.101
published in Journal of Anthropological Research 62(1), 1-25 (University of Chicago Press)
openalex publication_date 2006/04/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
The concept of social memory has generated a large literature, much of which focuses on the trauma of collective violence. Yet we need to know more about how narratives of violent and traumatic events influence social loyalties and how such narratives are managed or manipulated. Here we focus on the 1857 Mountain Meadows massacre, in which some 120 Arkansas emigrants were murdered in southwestern Utah. Our aim is not to establish "what really happened" at Mountain Meadows, but to examine the memory politics of the case--the many stories of the massacre, the ways they have been told, and their use as reference points in drawing or redrawing social boundaries. Our analysis highlights the activities of schoolteachers and other rural intellectuals in shaping the trauma process. This process, we argue, is based on an expanding sense of victimization as communicated in narratives of social violence and suffering.