The production of urban memory: an interdisciplinary roundtable
In our memory-obsessed time, cities have become places for the elaboration of images of the past that serve as a background for understanding, legitimizing, or contesting urban transformations. How are these cultural representations produced? How are they institutionalized, for example in UNESCO listings, cultural heritage initiatives, or public history projects? To what extent are they capable of integrating the changing demands of memory coming from a plurality of social subjects?
The roundtable discusses these issues starting from a book (Porter le temps. Mémoires urbaines d’un site horloger, Genève, MētisPresses, 2021) and a research project (“Memory and the city”, PoliTo/EPFL), and with the participation of an interdisciplinary group of Italian and Swiss researchers.